black eyes and may flowers

may punched me in the face.

hard.

stole my lunch money and stepped on the back of my heels in line.

may was the bully i tell my students not to be.

it threw its first punches the first week when we held all of our remaining ieps in one week so we would be done before the state testing started. (i do not recommend doing this. i think if someone suggests that we do this again we may claw their eyes out. it seemed like a good idea at the time. it wasn't). 6 punches that week. bam, bam, bam. iep after iep.

and then may snuck in two more ieps in the remaining weeks, just for kicks. like shoving me from behind when the fight was suppose to be over.

of course may brought testing- state testing or district testing, either way i've spent my days asking children to read books, identify letters, point to numbers, or fill in bubbles on standardized tests. the letters from children asking me to come back and teach them- give them new books to read is growing larger and large. i'm surprised they remember my name.

and with testing, may in its sneaky way, brings the lack of recess. beautiful days where children are trapped inside because it would be too disruptive for the test takers for us to go outside and play. of course, just to really knock the wind out of us, on the days we can take the kids out for recess it rains.

then may said, "hey, sorry about that, let's be friends. want to play mercy?" and so i was suckered into these events that sounded like a great idea- hey, we can be friends, right may? the field trip with the jump rope team. the girls on the run race. presenting at teacher research. volunteering to hold a brain breakfast for my math club. these things i did voluntarily. that were awesome and fun and enjoyable and i wouldn't take back. but may doesn't play for fun. anything for fun came at a cost. one broken finger at a time.

may stole my lunch money with the kindergarten field trip. on picture day it knocked me off the slide into the mud. and laughed the whole time.

may. everyone thinks of it as flowers and happiness. it hides it well. i am covered in bruises. i have black eyes, broken fingers. may was fight club.

one more day. oh june, with your long lists of how to close out the year. with your report cards and final reports and filing and cleaning and saying goodbye. with your hot, tiring field days, your end of year picnics, the packing up of the classroom. june, i welcome you. thank you for bringing us hope. for being short. for releasing us for 5 short weeks of summer.

may can only hurt me for so much longer.