Poem: Injustice

Impressionism

This poem is like looking at an impressionist painting. Looking straight on, it’s more of a blurred image, but once your eyes adjust, you can see more clearly. It’s pure imagery, so brace yourself.

I remember seeing snowflakes fall during French class and then experiencing that sense of disappointment when it all disappeared by the end of the day. And that image stuck with me while on the bus heading for a basketball game. It could be considered injustice, living in the South, that it takes a lot for the flakes to stick to the ground.

In the downtown area of where we lived, we’d walk around for festivals and stuff. And I remember noticing how when the grass was wet, it looked the same as cooked spinach. The kind of cooked spinach that comes frozen in those little boxes and, to a little kid, looks completely disgusting. So that’s what I’m referencing with “spinach blades.”

The rowdy school bus

Our bus never did any two-wheeled turns, but it was crowded.

Last year I read “Sensational Kids” where, among other things, it gives a day in the life of five students, one typical child and four who exhibit different characteristics of sensory processing disorder. The idea is to illustrate how each child encounters similar environments.

One girl had sensory modulation problems, like me, and she was hypersensitive to sounds and light, touch etc.

She was overwhelmed on the bus because of all the loud noise from the other children talking, she didn’t like being crowded on there with extra touching. Basically riding the bus further stressed her out before school even began.

It’s an interesting comparison.