“J’aime les chapeaux” Watch four years pass by Spent an hour at a time In a colorful like kindergarten room Full of twitchy teens learning French, Français s’il vous plaît

Watch the class size whittle down Year by year 28 turn 7 Looser reigns now Left unmonitored In unused classrooms, half-looking At dialogue sheets, thinking College next, after this

Watch kind Madame Watch re-taking tests until 100% Watch bocce ball tournaments Watch saddest movie of all time for extra credit Watch us laughing Watch us not working Watch us bickering and staying quiet and listening Twitching, snickering Mes amis

Is it because French Was my English for friendship That now four years is “bonjour” and “rien” and “moi aussi” And now I stumble through Basic French Learning Exercise Trying to conjugate

I could’ve tried a little harder Try to learn instead of intake Work for 100% first time, not third I could’ve And yet I look at “J’aime les chapeaux” And it spells friendship to me

We are wolven, lupine, running across the playground as if nothing else exists, skidding on dandelions and cracking knees into plastic slides. The games seem genetic, inherent to us. “Miss Suzy had a steamboat” not learned so much as encoded. Then wolves evolve into dogs by Pavlov’s recess bell, and dogs evolve to children in classrooms wiping stuck wood chips off of leggings and shorts. Substitute teacher to distract. Work as one. Stare into nowhere when he tries to teach fractions, sit rapt when asked question about UFOs. Classes move. Onto history. Rewards for good penmanship. We hold pencils with claws. Smell the wood of it, the timber in it. Think about this pencil rooted somewhere. Fracturing the next year. New packs at new school. Rearranging. Tightening. Loosening. We begin to realize our bipedalism, realize our blunted canine teeth. But the animal still there. New fur. Betrayal. A friend lost to Teen Vogue, more. Hunt down the traitor and bring them back to me alive! Feelings of dominance, superiority. We mistake alpha for alone. We get taught alpha over everyone else. We become I. I am lost. Ranging loneness. Body changing traitor. Friends away. Excellent penmanship. Be the best One. Be the first One. Fight all else. I try to rid the we from I. All for none.

It’s hard to know where I am. I am — in fact — here, and I am — in fact — gone. Their eyes are open and shut. This room is full but there is air above me, more air than I could ever need to fill my lungs. Venting in from the outside, the outside. Enough air for my lungs to breathe, enough air for my entire life. But I am not outside. I am here. And I am chained. And there is a key in an evidence bag, and that key led to a body, and that key led me here, and with that key I will be locked away for the rest of the air in my lungs. “I am not good at speaking,” I say. “I am confused. There is something wrong. But I do not know. I do not know what happened. I have become jury to my own life, I sit with you. And I do not know what happened. Why he was there.” My body shakes and my esophagus constricts. “I know what my outside looks like, but I will tell you inside I am lost. Confused.” I must sit down. I gag at the feeling of my unwet tongue. There a mother cries. There a juror blows her nose. There my elbow hurts where it was wrung. The air is quiet and stale. Eyes shut and open. Directions to step away and deliberate. Whispers slide next to hot cartilage ears. “It’s almost over.” His body began somewhere. Next to hills, far away from here. Then to concrete, to iron wrought apartment gates. Friends say he was beloved. Colleagues say he was diligent. He was here, he loved it here, he went here to relax, he went here to socialize, he was found here, dead, gone, her key in the door, her gone, her tickets to leave the country, her envy of him. Of his success. Of his excess charm. She wanted him gone so she could take ownership of what was his. But in his death I have given him so much. His bruises are mine, his death shroud my bed linens, his death my life imprisoned. I knew him as Ritchie. Sorry Ritchie, no blueberry scones today. Yes Ritchie, I’ll get right on that. No Ritchie, I don’t think we should. Was that even me? The memories crumble apart in this stale room. I can’t think of my life as things that have happened to me. My life is only here. Born in beige jumpsuit. And when I leave this room I will cease to exist, someone other will take over. Ritchie will be no more real. Above me the air curtain ruffles. The doors open and the jury re-shuffles. The judge un-rumples his tunic. Ritchie lies cold dead in my head and in the ground under one of his hills. He never told me about the hills. I never knew they existed until now. And yet they must have been in his heart every second it ticked. Grass between toes. Rabbits stared at until they noticed. Clouds casting soft shadows. His world, not mine. Yet his world is now mine, and the jury reclined. And those that talked, talked. Those that were missing work thought about this ending early. I brought my face to theirs but I couldn’t look at them. I looked through them. And they to me. I wasn’t here in ten minutes. I’m here now. His wife’s oily bangs stuck to her damp face. Affirmations exchanged, I am picked up and held, then walked away. To gone, here I am.