Tag: bullying

Changing rooms by David Hanlon

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Changing rooms

long wooden benches
no backs
oversized white shorts
string vests
pink/pale flesh
hairless legs

rows of coat hook rails
uniformed hooks
soldiers’ heads
floating
decapitated

I’m wearing
my new two-tone Nike trainers
boys remark
half-discuss
how cool they are

before one boy
the most popular
highest-ranking
disagrees
profusely

then gay boy
gay boy gay boy gay boy
with gay trainers

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David Hanlon is a poet from Cardiff, Wales. He is a Best of the Net nominee. You can find his work online in over 50 magazines, including Rust & Moth, Kissing Dynamite & Homology Lit. His first chapbook Spectrum of Flight is available for purchase now at Animal Heart Press. You can follow him on twitter @davidhanlon13 and Instagram @welshpoetd

HALF A CENTURY AGO by Kenneth Pobo

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HALF A CENTURY AGO

Tom bullied me. Has he
forgotten the cruelty?
Graduation was an eraser.
Maybe he plays with his grandkids,
tells them stories of his childhood.
When he gave his friends
candy cigarettes and licorice whips.

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Kenneth Pobo is the author of twenty-one chapbooks and nine full-length collections. Recent books include Bend of Quiet (Blue Light Press), Loplop in a Red City (Circling Rivers), and Uneven Steven (Assure Press). Opening is forthcoming from Rectos Y Versos Editions. Lavender Fire, Lavender Rose is forthcoming from Brick/House Books.