it must be perturbing or itchy, like poison ivy blisters or uncontrollable acne,
but some kids are familiar with this problem. They over-expose the yearbook's film.
out-dazzling flashbulbs. Weekends, they light up the visitor's scoreboard, but not to
make trouble.
They're not alone. Other kids know if they dissolve solids at the worst times, it's not
a surprise;
it's as if, for instance, a locker room's cinderblock walls were instant powdered drink
mixture.
These aren't under control, are secrets. And how they were taught to relax, they forget;
they never get dates. Because a life's unsure when fingers sprout branches, or what
a brain suggests
in a not pleasant voice is gas on fires already simmering and subcutaneous.
And when their eyes, shameful to them though autonomous, concentrate to atomize,
after midnight, their parents' bedroom door (so vision supersedes any need for ears)
they'll botch it more if they phone, confessing or laughing, the good-looking regular ones.
Such conditions don't merit headlines, interviews, don't receive TV's close-up devotions,
in fact, aren't claimed to exist, except in muscle-bound fantastic comics parents trash.
So how could you know that, in unnatural August twilight, at grown-ups' backyard
barbecues,
one boy teenager's aware his epidermis stretches, fibrous, leaves-out, as steaks char?
He's dynamic as an oak, but mobile. He towers over suburbs, looking for villains to handle.
Another glows and senses he gives off infinitesimal lightning. He's enigmatic, shining,
his hair's electrically curled. What combustions, deep as tissue, are stoked to save this
boy's world!
Meanwhile his uncle (oblivious) flips magazine pages portraying all-important people.
Another, his sister, sees (and is stunned, wishes to hide) white, too white, father's boxers
x-rayed and minutely as she sees mechanisms in every clock, in every classroom;
they're shocking as teacher's hands in see-through pockets. And at dances, boys'
hands fidget in pockets.
She's hopeless, she's certain. From porch to lawn chair to TV room her eyes are
too strong.
Listen, it's not that they lack auditoriums, courses, programs to show them distinctions.
It's not that they have no teachers to lay down rules, for example what's good or evil.
The bad ones already are too big, the movies are moving much too fast. Classmates
cringe or giggle;
jocks, bullies, cool blond class presidents, cheerleaders know what to avoid, resent.
It's not comic. Transmogrified life's not for school, should only be pencilled and inked.
So what if blame, as often ascribed, is traced to parents tested on fertile drugs,
to radiation?
Through suburbs school buses still cruise. Important villains won't ever go home
after curfews.
Worse still, dailies ignore exigent kids. Their existence is denied by ballplayers, eggheads.
They won't chat with prom queens, politicians, or earn a TV special. Their parents'll
never marvel.