The cafeteria was too
massive yet still the size
confined. Don’t want to talk lunch
meat. Or Drew at the table, harping.
He is inconsequential so why do I
mention him, twenty-some years
after? The bullies are the ones
who stay. I got smacked in the head
by a basketball there. The only fair
fight’s a food fight. Today, he’s
famous. He doesn’t know I have
this story to tell. I
drifted in and out of consciousness
for a week after. I floated
in the river, involuntarily.
That version of me drowned.
I never saw him again.

(originally published in The Scop Magazine, 2023)