Recess Poem by Frank Avon

The playground was my prison.
I attempted to shelter myself at its edges.
If I could only make it through fifteen more minutes
without hearing once again
those voices

- shrill, mocking, jabbing, wily, taunting -

and those names

all those names

names, names, names.

Sonsabitches,
I should have yelled
back at them,
and shook my fist,
and kicked up dust,
and spit,
but I couldn't.

And if I could've -
well, I would have had to be a different person,
not myself,
and this playground not my prison.