In the 4th grade...

I'd never brought a pencil to school.

Scrounged for one every single day.

Hunter gatherer type shit....

My teacher refused me one on test day.

I'd ran to the bathroom...sad...I was a failure.

Then I found a grimy HB#2 under a bush

I believed the nature spirit Pan had left it for me.

I carried it like a secret token, proof that wonder was real...

.. and that for a moment in time...

I had been chosen to notice it.

🩷