I’ve worked with kids many times in my life, but this year was different—more alive, more tender, and more complex. I took a job in after-school care at a Catholic elementary school after losing another job I thought I needed, and somehow, this one rooted itself into me. I didn’t have a classroom of my own, but the playground, cafeteria, parking lot, piano, and poems became my places of connection. The children I spent this year with—wild, brilliant, maddening, sacred—shifted something in me. Memento Mori is poetry about leaving the classroom when the classroom was never quite yours but still broke your heart to leave.
It’s poetry about leaving the classroom when your mom dreamed of being a teacher and never got to be one, and now you find yourself mouthing goodbye to children who might forget you but somehow changed you forever. It’s also poetry about leaving the classroom when that classroom becomes a mirror, a wound, a holy blur of chalk dust and garlic baseballs. It’s not just a piece for me—it’s a release. And it’s the only way I know how to mark something so invisible and so deeply real.
☾ ✧ ☽
Hello.
The last two days have been lovely.
I’m not sure what to write about.
My brain’s tossing at me commands and yearnings and idle wonderings and expectations—
Mulch the flower bed.
Sow the sunflowers.
Select the list for the French fête.
Write the invitations.
Write the thank-you notes.
Create your altar.
Hang your lanterns.
Have sex.
Take your dogs somewhere nice.
When it’s lively, woken, kind of good,
I want it to stay.
I don’t want to veer.
I want to stay.
I want to go.
I want to change, open.
I’ll never leave this bedroom behind—
for how can any other be this perfect again?
My neighbor lost his brother in a movie theater,
a dispute over a seat.
I’ve heard this before—
my mother’s coworker, killed dead for a hamburger.
We, with our stories and our powers,
are as fragile as the writhing worm.
Eaten by a robin or shot in the cinema—
what’s the difference, really?
I’m scared of violence.
If I get to Enlightenment—
does that fear dissipate?
My fingertips are starting to bear callouses
from fiddle-string pressings.
I’m not positive I’m getting better—
and I’m pretty sure I’m getting better.
Amy looks away and cries that I’m not coming back.
That’s so nice.
Just nice that she cares.
What a year it’s been.
I’m scared of not measuring my life by a school’s calendar.
New starts in August’s excited rush.
Farewells in May.
I thought I’d rinse, repeat—at least a few times.
Apparently, no.
I can’t fathom signing that form again.
Why?
Maybe because I know they’re screwy
and they don’t see, value, accept, or honor me in my wholeness.
I’m wise enough to understand,
and along enough to know not to stay there—
in that space where they want to, demand to, stay in the dark.
I shine my light.
And I’ll take it up and out.
If I don’t know where to shine,
I know I can shine on me.
I can love me, know me, respect me, feel me.
I know you want to go to the playground,
and I’ve decided to stand firmly in my choice not to today.
I encourage your screaming.
Now show me how you butter me up!
Ask me in a foreign language.
We’re still not going—
and aren’t we having fun?
You’ll remember playing baseball with a head of old garlic.
Maybe you’ll remember Cohen’s home run.
I’ll remember you.
I’ll take everything I’ve written about you
and memorialize our time here.
I needed to be with you.
It was so important.
I can’t believe we were only meant to share one year together.
I wonder how much you’ll miss me,
or care I’m not coming back.
I think I made a big impact—
in that cafeteria,
on that playground,
in that parking lot.
We sang, imagined, spoke French,
played four square,
rolled around on turf and woodchips,
dealt cards,
built Lego structures.
I read your writing.
You listened to my poem.
We dueted on guitar.
You applauded when I played piano.
I disinfected your scrapes.
Held your lost tooth.
Held your stuffed lamb.
Asked you to ref.
Asked you to be kinder.
Helped you when you said you didn’t want to live.
Felt distant from you after.
I miss you.
And I’m not gone yet.
I miss all the children who grew up.
Everyone has an idea of what’s right for you—
the boldest and most influential wins out, regardless of effect.
I’m not popular amongst fellow adults for it,
but I’ve never forgotten how much you (we) know.
I have zero desire to control you.
I think, largely, you can lead your own way.
You can, and you should.
I’ll keep you alive
and as safe as I can muster.
I’ll offer my honest, present attention—
whether for the plot of a book,
a list of what you do at your grandma’s house,
a story about bullies,
or one of your many welcomed questions.
I’m scared
because I don’t know if this is it for playing teacher.
And what that would mean.
I thought I’d know the shape of what I want by now.
I am painting colors.
Borderless.
So it blurs—
the red of passion and anger and lust and poppies,
the blue of a jay and the everlasting sky,
the pink of my wardrobe and the tint of my cheeks,
the yellow-orange of a guitar,
the stone-grey of my rising and falling breath.
Be nervous or casual or pretending or frenetic.
Be in rehab or sport a bandaid.
Grow out your hair or burn your skin in the sun.
Blister your feet with new shoes.
Massage your feet when I ask you to.
Thank me.
Thank you.
Ride the train.
See a plane.
Drink the fizz.
Jot a note.
Sketch a dog.
Phone a friend.
Ask a favor.
Ignore my real words.
Feign connection.
Love me.
Love you.
FaceTime. Say goodbye for dinner.
Balance on one leg.
Notice the movement
of a crane’s ancient foot
as it walks amongst the cattle.
We will never be strangers
and we will never know each other.
Fall in love with paradox.
Find it charming—
the chaos,
the fear,
the fire,
the frame of a scene.
Any scene.
Your scene.
Turn the page and keep writing.
Don’t know what will come
and choose to go there anyway.
Think of your mom and your dad.
The only structure we all have in common—
parents.
The ones who made us.
From clay.
From love.
From ignorance.
A bird doesn’t ask a bird
about the philosophy of responsible child-rearing.
They just know.
And yet, four of the five juvenile robins
lay dead on the ground
below where their parents roost.
Why?
We’re not sure.
The robin doesn’t seem to scream, cry, anguish—
but, God,
how can I assume, for certain,
that she doesn’t?
If I write long enough, I’ll gain a clue.
Unearth a sparkly rainbow fish-scale.
A prize.
A piece of the world.
A holdable feeling.
A universal truth.
It’ll make me…
What will it make me?
I remember to inhale.
I hear a screech—
soft drizzle on shingles in the night.
I wanna shake you like a storm.
I wanna hold all the friends I had
when I was too young to remember them,
and too meek to say I cared,
to join a game,
to be one amongst many.
I may have missed the boat.
Hey, I’ll swim.
I may even prefer it.
It’s, perhaps, my nature.
If my mom hadn’t been on heroin,
I’d be a ballerina.
A ridiculous and satisfying tale.
A woman of twenty-nine can’t say she is or isn’t—
a story is only a third of the way written.
Even with only pages left,
you never really know.
Anything and everything
could be in those pages not yet written.
Yes, scary.
Yes, amazing, hopeful, and extraordinarily freeing.
There is no definition for me, of me—
because, for that, I’d have to be a stagnant concept.
That simply cannot be.
The shape of a flame shifts until it goes out.
Relit, it is a different flame altogether.
I’m not out.
I’m in.
I’m on.
I’m here.
A diamond always adorning my finger,
a pen often in my hand.
Sabrina is a name that suits me quite well, yes.
Thanks for noticing.
☾ ✧ ☽
If you’ve ever said goodbye to a child—or a version of yourself who worked with children—you might understand what this piece holds. There’s no one way to leave something that mattered. This is poetry about leaving the classroom, but it’s also poetry about presence, memory, the fragility of life, and the impossibility of closure. I’ll never stop writing poetry about leaving the classroom because it’s never really left me.
✧
Meaning moves best when it’s mutual. If this piece stirred something in you, a quiet act of reciprocity is always welcome—a soft thank you, a shared heartbeat, a gesture of mutual tending.
I invite you to visit the sacred reciprocity page if you feel called to.
Thanks for being here. ⋆⁺₊✧🜃
