In The Running

I hate reading.
How the letters keep changing places.
How some words move, then say, Boo!

I love math.
When sixteen refuses to be sixty-one.
When divided-by retains its dots.

I color outside the lines.
My cat drawing has bat wings to fly.
My family drawing is a headstone in the rain.

School brands me Stupid.
A red-hot iron word applied daily,
by twenty-three classmates’ tongues.

Though I fail to outrun ridicule,
I win every footrace at recess.

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copyright © 2020 Kenneth P. Gurney