like one time Amy King sat on a chair
and it collapsed beneath her
I think we laughed for months.
She had to take a week off school.
Another time a Science Clown came in to
teach us physics on a unicycle and he got hard and
then was asked to leave –
oh Ava, what a spectacle!
His multicoloured parachute pants, his personal
big top…
We drove a boy called Samuel to
insanity one winter just by chanting his first name in
every gap of Wham’s “Last Christmas”, as in –
Last Christmas I gave you my heart, – SAMUEL –
but the very next day, – SAMUEL – you gave it away, –
SAMUEL –
he bashed his head against the wall so
hard he cracked his skull.
They called an assembly one day –
just the girls – as someone had been wiping their used
tampon all along the corridor walls.
The headmaster said he’d find out
who was doing such disgusting things to our beloved
building and they’d be expelled.
I don’t think they ever found the culprit.
Good on her, I say, Ava,
whatever she was going through,
she’d found a way to say it. Made her mark.
L’écriture féminine
est nécessaire, non, Ava?
All girls who had their periods were told to queue
for questioning,
I didn’t have mine yet,
still queued though, obviously,
we all did,
even those too young to be suspected –
I am Spartacus
no one wanting to admit they hadn’t
reached that milestone yet.
Yes Yes, I am woman. Born from egg. Bloody enough to
