God, I am freaking out. Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe I just look guilty of something and he’s picking up on that.

And everyone knows you can’t disprove a rumor.

That's what I love about poetry. The more abstract, the better. The stuff where you're not sure what the poet's talking about. You may have an idea, but you can't be sure. Not a hundred percent. Each word, specifically chosen, could have a million different meanings.

That is all that happened. Why did you hear something else?

And it feels strange, almost sad, to walk through ther empty halls. Each step I take sounds so lonely.

I tried getting my dad to buy me a beeper for my birthday,” he says, “but he thinks only doctors and drug dealers need them.

I take a slow sip of lukewarm coffee, reopen the book, and read the words scribbled in red ink near the top: Everyone needs an olly-olly-oxen-free.