Rhyme Schemer Read Free

everybody!
    We scream till we’re blue!
    See? That wasn’t hard.

DAY I DON’T EVEN KNOW ANYMORE
    Metamorphosis.
    We watched a movie about it in science.
    It’s when a caterpillar snuggles up in a chrysalis
    like a backward mummy.
    Instead of dying and being wrapped up,
    it wraps itself up to live.
    To become something new,
    something with freedom.
    Something pretty.
    Unless it’s a moth.
    A moth still has freedom,
    but it’s
    Ugly
    Gross
    Brown
    Dusty.
    It’s just a dirty moth.
    In that case, metamorphosis is kind of sad.
    Little caterpillar wraps itself up
    like a kid in elementary school
    going to sleep
    and waking up a pizza-faced middle school weirdo.
    Robin is changing, growing wings
    every day
    in a chrysalis made of my notebook.
    A revenge chrysalis.
    (Which would be a good name for a band.)
    If I squint, I can see his
    Ugly
    Gross
    Dusty
    Dirty
    moth wings.
    His pizza face.
    His pale eyes
    glowing with greed
    at the laughs he gets
    at my expense
    that Mrs. Smithson ignores.
    Just like fake moth eyes on ugly wings
    Robin’s eyes
    better be hiding
    his true self—
    that he is still scared of me.
    Because he should be.

WEEKEND
    Dad asked what was going on.
    But he meant it like,
    Hey, bro! What’s going on?
    Like a dude punching another dude’s shoulder
    at the beach.
    So I said:
    Nothing
    Because that’s what he wanted me to say.

    If I am made of stone at home
    no one can bother me.
    If I am made of stone at school
    no one can bother me.
    Paul says even stones have to crack
    to let out steam.
    But what he doesn’t understand is that
    there is always someone
    who wants to stick their head in a crack
    and sniff around.
    Hahaha.
    But seriously.
    Paul is so annoying.

DAY 30-something
    Hartwick was looking at me
    from his office across the hall.
    I wanted to say
    You can’t look at me like that
.
    I wanted to say
    Hide those beady eyes back under your greasy lids
.
    I wanted to say
    Go away
.
    But I didn’t say anything
    because the nurse was putting antiseptic on my lip
    where it busted open
    after I fell on it
    in the hallway
    when Robin tripped me
    and said
    Poetry boy can’t write sentences
    or walk, either
.
    And Giant John laughed.

    It’s a shame, really,
    how Mrs. Smithson ignores Robin
    as he seeks revenge.
    She is depriving him
    of the ceiling stain
    of Hartwick’s tie-nightmare-of-the-day
    of the SHOUTING ABOUT RESPONSIBILITY.
    The moth-faced boy flies free.
    Again.

    My heartbeat in my lip.
    Mom pinched her face up tight.
    She made sure I didn’t need stitches.
    Philip high-fived me
    when I said
You should’ve seen the other guy
.
    Petey just rolled his eyes
    and Paul sighed real big.
    But there was no other guy.
    Unless you count Robin
    looking innocent
    as Mrs. Smithson and Harry
    bobbled by.

    Robin says it’s time for another Poetry Bandit
    thing.
    I told him to go rip out a page from the library.
    He said no, that I should do it.
    Blackmail stinks.
    (Another good band name.)

    I put it up before I gave it to Robin.
    I think he grew three inches just from being mad.
    He wanted to get “caught” putting it up,
    by me.
    I told him to go sign his name if he wants all the credit.
    But someone had already thrown it away.
    The teachers, they learn fast.

TUESDAY
    Mrs. Little looks at me sideways.
    I know she wants to say something
    but I don’t want to listen
    so I pretend I don’t see
    her eyes
    in the corner of her face
    like a hieroglyph.

    It’s not like I never had a fat lip.
    That’s what I want to say
    to her hieroglyph eye.
    Every time I look up and see her
    she is staring.
    And she doesn’t look away.
    It’s like she wants me to see.
    She’s looking, searching, telling me something
    that I can’t hear.
    Just like my lip keeps a beat
    to a song I can’t hear.

    I’m glad for the books today,
    heavy in my hands.
    They go on the shelves,
    one after the other.
    I don’t