MR

there once was a boy
they called him "MR"
they told him it was short for mister
as they smiled that secret smile.


school was a room
an all day room
filled with kids that were
more animal or stone than kid
and a teacher who was
at best hostile
(because at least then he cared),
and at worst
self-medicated:
just like the stone-kids.


MR learned everything
and nothing in that room,
the world, they taught, was all walls
some he could see
like the chalkboard with the strange pictures
others he couldn't
like the one that made the words strange
and, when he tried to respond to them,
the same wall made the faces strange too,
made them mad, or screwed up, or
sometimes laughing.

MR didn't mind it when the faces laughed.
At least they were happy then,
and he would laugh too.
It would be the closest
the wall came to being a mirror.