things my report card should say
by Marla
That although I am
not the fastest learner, I am keeping up
appearances; I
won’t be that sad girl at the back of the class
who just wants
everyone to feel sorry for her. That although I don’t
always arrive on
time, I am patient, staying in my seat long after
the bell has rung,
waiting for traces of wisdom to float down on me
from the
fluorescent-soaked ceiling, like kites retiring
after a warm summer
day. That I am polite, and that my skirt
always falls below
my knees as it should, and that at the very least
I don’t ask stupid
questions. Not out loud.
That I work just as
hard as the winners do.
That I don’t
interrupt when the teacher is talking
(except for
that one time, when a classmate leaned over
and told me
how the boy I last kissed, kissed
another girl
at a party, while hoots and whistles
blocked his
guilt at the door, an unwelcome guest
to a
celebration of reckless youth, and
as a joke I
said, “Pics or didn’t happen,” and even if
there were no
images presented to me like conclusions
to a science
experiment, I knew
that the ones
in my head were enough,
and the
teacher raised an eyebrow, the universal code for I am
an adult, and you are a child, and you
are pissing me off, and
asked, “Is
there anything you want to share
with the rest
of the class?” to which I replied,
“Ma’am,
sharing is for sluts.”);
that I can
forgive myself for trying and failing but never
for cheating,
that I play fair, because some losses
are worth it,
and there must be a reason
there is a
less in lesson,
and an earn
in learn,
that for all
the hubris-brandishing and windmill-tilting pegged
on kids my age,
I beg to differ: I know my place.
First, that I
care
about our
culture and history,
the economy,
a progressive society that gives
more than it
can get, all that serious shit.
Second, that
I care
about the
periodic table and the square root of pi,
about the
least common denominator, about Shakespeare,
Kant and
Freud, and everyone who fancied themselves experts
on humanity,
about Jupiter, Saturn, outer space,
galaxies
entirely removed from ours. Third, that I care
but this
doesn’t make me smart—it’s not that easy—it doesn’t
make me good.
It doesn’t make anything. Last:
That I care,
so much, too much, what people think, even when
I don’t need
to, and especially when I don't want to.
That I work just as
hard as the winners do.
That just
because someone says I need improvement
doesn’t
necessarily mean I have potential, that the ways
in which we
are measured will never again be as concrete
or as clear
as when our mothers and fathers tracked our growth
on door posts
with pencil marks and pride;
that I am
just desperate, please, for a higher
form of
evaluation.