I melt right down to sticky glaze thinking those sweet cherubs had to be consoled of me. Seeing those faces in the yearbooks past, I wonder if I’ve done my job well enough.

Old friends I’ve tormented tell me it made them stronger — made the smiles afterward longer lasting.

Over the years, these dear little snots got softer around their edges.

Posters reading “you are beautiful” and “it gets better” went up.

The board said it warmed some certain groups of students.

“Which ones?” I spat.

“Well, all of them,” they declared. Setting up undue refuge from me.

As in wartime, the sour times do not simply cancel out the daydreams. On the contrary!

They’re complementary.

I alone embedded memories in them with the tools of emotion. Pathos my only lesson plan.

My methods remain tried and true!

Those little suckers pained and stretched and waxed greater.

The biting complements the saccharine.

My old friends, they tell me, “Everything in my life comes back to my times with you. What I wouldn’t give to taste the daze again –– sour, sweet, then gone.”

Monday May 11, 2020