Attention Fellow Schoolteachers:

Always leave the year before you don't smile after October. Arm yourself. This is not political. It
is you who trained the children to run-hide-fight. You who remained calm and packed a
classroom go-bag. We all wear masks. Sure, you will curate rich experiences and get paid for it.
You will do an awful job and get paid the same. Eventually, you will learn that you teach more
when you care less. Joy is in the wings, somewhat featherless but proud--taking herself too
seriously (like a doorjamb). No one will ever say you are teaching civics well enough. Think
whatever you want, I can too. But I can't say it. There's nothing beautiful in the dark. I don't
know if I have another twenty years in me. It's so late, [remember
it can kill You]
and I'm still here: cutting classes
into quilts to be filled with golden
down gagged, soggy, and freezing my own ass off

Maura Way is the author of ANOTHER BUNGALOW (Press 53). Her work has previously appeared in Puerto del Sol, The Ocean State Review, Hotel Amerika, and The Red Ogre Review. She has been a schoolteacher since 1995, most recently at a small, Quaker high school in North Carolina.