I'll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours.

Her name was Kim and her skin was bad

Like mine, eczema, though worse, somehow

On a girl, as if that rhyme about what

Little girls and boys are made of had failed her:

She was not sugar and spice and all things nice.

We, as a collective of 8 year olds,

Had cast her out as defective, and yet,

I had feelings for her.

I knew what it was like to have that itch.

To draw blood with my fingernails,

To wear those dry patches, lizard skin, scales,

To daub myself with steroid creams

That would sting so much they made me scream

But my complaint was mostly hidden

Hers was on her face

For one so marked

School can be an ugly place

There was one recess when we were playing chasey

And she had cornered me in the boys' toilets

I had always thought she liked me

So amid the shit stained, piss-stinking walls

I uttered those words:

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

She nodded, feverish from the chase

Panting with expectation

So I undid my pants and pulled it out

She immediately screamed and ran

And told everybody in the quadrangle

That I had shown her my thingy

I scrambled out after her, shouting

"No I didn't, no I didn't!"

And because I was the one not visibly disfigured

Because I was a boy, because my family were nice,

Because my lunchbox was always interesting,

Because I was smart, because I wasn't poor,

They all believed me over her.

© Shaun Patrick Green 2018