GRACE WAS RUNNING late. It was an occurrence that would've deserved commemoration if Wyatt had not been too preoccupied with going over the final stanza of his poem to notice.
On Claire's recommendation he'd checked out a website that allowed users to input certain keywords, and within moments poems related to the topics put in were displayed. It was how he'd stumbled on a poem he staunchly believed had been custom-made for him.
It felt like a prayer, and he could've sworn that it was actually one from how the words dug into his brain till he found himself reciting them in the shower, or while he was doing his biology assignment. Memorizing it had come naturally. Dispatches from a Doomed Fire Island Romance.
Hell, even its title sounded righteous.
He'd ordered a paperback of the collection it was from off Amazon, before moving to devour what scraps of poetry he could find off Tumblr by the same writer, and while Wyatt had never paid any serious attention to the genre. Beyond his run-in a couple of years ago with an ex's journal, he hadn't read much poetryâbut that was changing now.
In the seats beside him, two of his classmates gushed about an album by an indie pop band they followed. He couldn't hear much of what was said, but got the gist that they'd started off dancing and ended it crying which, good for them, honestly.
The atmosphere held a kind of restless energy he had never associated with this particular class, but then this was the longest they had ever been without their teacher, and perhaps if she continued on taking her sweet time there would be a live reenactment of Lord of the Flies. (Murder and anarchy over public speaking, any day.)
Wyatt would not have described himself as shy, and it wasn't like the people around him were strangers, in a literal sense since in all his years at Mayfield he must have interacted with most of them at least onceâwhich made perfect sense until he added hadn't spoken to a large percent of them more than once.
There was Noya and her girlfriend, Winona, who he shared pleasantries with whenever they met in Spanish. And Malcolm Kwame, who he could always rely on to have two sharpies during tests if he ever ran out, but other than these three and Tobi he could count on both hands the number of people in his grade that he spoke to on a regular basis.
God, he sounded miserable.
The sound of the door opening brought him out of his thoughts, and Wyatt watched Grace step into the room, her self assured smile firmly fixed. Today her locs were tied into a ponytail with a red bandana. She wore a red long sleeve, tucked into a pair of faded red jeans with the helms folded and red flatsâa human stop sign.
All thoughts of poetry evaporated as he took in the travesty. Please unsee. Jesus, her fashion sense alone could have qualified her for a spot on the domestic terrorist watchlist, and from the ghastly expressions he saw ripple through his classmates faces, they probably agreed.
"Hi everyone," she began obliviously, "I apologize for the lateness."
The entire class silently watched as she moved briskly to the table at the front and arranged some of the books she had brought in with her.
"I met up with the teachers of every period you have after this one to ask if they would allow my time to extend into theirs so we could have more time for the poetry today."
The room erupted in groans, Wyatt included, and it struck him that he was more annoyed with the thought of having to sit through two periods of English than of publicly speaking. The nerves must not have hit yet.
"I'm sorry," Grace called out. "I noticed that we were falling behind on our workload and that can't happen. We have a lot to cover this year and if we can't go through them you'll have to go to summer school." She paused. "Plus, it would reflect poorly on me as your teacher, and so it's a big lose-lose situation for all of us. I'm truly sorry guys."
Ever the teacher's pet, Monique chirped from her place at the center of the class that it was alright, and she must have felt the sudden gravity of everyone's glare settle on her because in the next moment her posture stiffened and Marco edged his desk away from her.
"Thank you, Monique," Grace said, smiling. "To, we'll spend about twenty minutes on our syllabus and move onto our favorite part."
Oh, the irony.
"Yes Missâ" Monique's mouth snapped as all eyes turned to her again, and Marco let out an unintentional snort, burying his face in his book.
Over half the class had given their presentations already, and Wyatt was among the small minority who hadn't.
As the rest of the class flipped through their copies of To Kill a Mockingbird he returned to his phone, and hidden under his locker he began to speed read his poem, mouthing the words before he even got to them. A last minute cram was imperative.
They were in the third quarter of the book, and so Grace had them skim over major plot points, occasionally stopping to read out a passage from the book, and she exhaled loudly when she finished.
"Reading this bildungsroman is always like taking a warm bath," she said with a faraway look in her eyes, and from there she steered them into discussions of the books thematic elementsâthreatening boundaries, racism, childhood innocence, etc.
They had just begun an analysis of the main character Scout when the timer on Grace's phone went off, and Wyatt was surprised to find that it was actually the intro to the new Beyoncé song. This tidbit of information almost convinced him to write off her fashion blunder.
"You're up, Moira," Grace said, motioning to the girl at the back who, surprisingly, managed to pull off an e-girl aesthetic even wearing the Mayfield school uniform: winged eyeliner, a chain necklace and piercings. Those kinds of things.
Moira, startled, dragged her feet as she walked to the front of the class and paused, eyes wide as she silently stared at all of them like a deer caught in headlights. Eventually, she seemed to come to and have a slight shake of her head.
"Um, hâhi everyone," she began timidly, in a surprisingly delicate voice."I'll be presenting the lyrics to American Pie."
"Excuse me," Marco barked, scarcely after the words had left her lips. His hand had shot up into the air, and without waiting for Grace's permission to speak, he said: "That is not a poem."
Moira's lips parted as she licked them, mouth moving as she tried and failed to come up with a suitable response.
Watching her turn red faced in front of all of them as she struggled, clutching at the hem of her skirt, Wyatt felt a sudden wave of empathy go through him and he spoke:
"Ballads we're originally written to be sung, Marco. There's a whole subset of poetry known as sung poetry, so lyricsâno matter how old, or newâcould count as poetry. Just because you didn't think of it first doesn't make it invalid."
The words flew out of his mouth before he'd even completely thought of them, and now the entire class had their eyes on him, including Grace. Wyatt shifted in his seat, but he kept his face straight, neutral, and when Moira tried to catch his eyes briefly he looked away, uncomfortable.
After what felt like an eternity (more accurately, ten seconds), Grace cleared her throat and tore her gaze away from him.
"Wyatt's correct," she announced. "This exercise isn't just about poetry specifically; it's about art, research, and creativity. Thinking out of the box is the point, so well done, Moira. Please, continue."
Moira beamed as she prepared to start, like she'd woken up to find that one of her TikTok's had gone viral, and Wyatt busied himself to ensure he didn't make eye contact with her or Marco for that matter, who was glaring daggers at him.
She stuttered through the first couple of lines, but then got surer after a few false starts, and slowly all of the attention peeled from Wyatt as everyone listened to Moira Campbell tell them of the day the music died, a generation lost in space and a deal with the devilâwith such feeling that it was like in front of their eyes she transfigured.
There had been good presentations, like Monique and Marco's, for example; bizarre ones, like Sophie Kim who'd recited Charles Bukowski's We Ain't Got No Money, Honey, But we Got Rain while her brother Ellis drummed pencils against his desk till it sounded like a weird poem-rap mashupâbut Moira's was, well, it was something, and not a soul spoke when she finished and moved on to an analysis of the lyrics.
Last year there was a rumor circulating about her. She'd gotten the highest grade in an assignment that would make up most of their grade for that class and the next morning it was on everyone's lips that she paid for the grade.
Regardless of whether or not it was true (and looking back, it probably wasn't) the news had made waves around Mayfield, and even Wyatt who at the time had been dedicating every ounce of energy in himself into finding out whether he was being two-timed by Dean (or was it Zach?), had noticed it when Moira became something of a social pariah. They'd been wrong all along.
As she walked to her desk after finishing Moira flashed Wyatt a quick, grateful smile, and he gave a wooden nod, eyes darting away from her when Grace clapped, effectively breaking the spell.
"That was stunning, Moira," she admitted, and a tic appeared along Marco's jaw as he shot Wyatt another murderous glare. "Well done, and thank you." A pause. "Floyd, come on up."
Thunder did not strike twice in AP English, apparently, because the lifeless presentation that followed had Wyatt stifling yawns, and he glanced over to find one of the indie pop band girls nodding off. The other half of the duo was not better off, as she was already taking a siesta.
It didn't take long for it to be over, thankfully, and Wyatt shook himself alert as Grace's eyes combed the room until they came to stop on Wyatt. His mouth went dry.
"Wyatt," she called him, a corner of her mouth turning up, "it's your turn."
The nerves he'd thought absent made a sudden appearance, and as he slid his phone into his bag to get up, his heart started to race. His palms had begun to perspire, and if he rose his hands above his head there would be twin crescents, damp under his armpits.
Excited murmurs ran through the room as he plodded forward, and he watched a girl in the middle row shake her friend awake and point as he stepped past them, which was great, really. Perfect, in factâall the more eyes to watch him flop at his recital.
At the front of the class he slipped his hands into his pockets, then quickly slipped them out because the balance around his shoulders felt strange, and then he tried to picture the entire room naked but that didn't work either.
"Hi, everyone. I, uhâI'm here to present my poem."
He trailed off when Marco leaned over to whisper something to Monique, whose head dipped as she tried to stifle a laugh.
"ânot my poem," he clarified, realizing in the next moment that it wasn't necessary. "Just, a poem by, er, someone I really like."
Groundbreaking, a voice in his head said, deadpan, and the contents of his stomach threatened to burble up out of his stomach. He swallowed, just in case.
"The poem is Dispatches from a Doomed Fire Island Romance by Harvey Elliot."
His words fell into the silence of the room, eliciting no response but an encouraging nod from Grace.
"It's important to start," Wyatt began, expecting the words to flow out of him naturally. It wasn't until he noticed his mouth working with no sound coming out of it that he realized his mind had drawn up blank. "I'm sorry."
Someone coughed, and Wyatt felt a bead of sweat roll down his forehead as blood rushed through his ears. He closed his eyes to picture the first stanza.
"It's important to start by / saying you've gotten home / from work." The words were shaky, unsure:
When I kiss you on
The cheek, pull your jacket off and
Lead you to the dinner table
Try as he might, none of the other words materialized, and Wyatt felt his insides turn to cold stones as the poem stretched even further out of reach. To give himself time he cleared his throat, adjusting his uniform, though he knew none of these fooled anyone. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes as white hot humiliation coursed through him and he glanced up briefly to find Marco watching him with gleeful malice in his eyes, as clear as day.
"Would you like to read out your poem to the whole class from a place you wrote it in, maybe?" Grace asked, and immediately he shook his head.
It was a tempting offer, but it would affect his final grade. Everyone else had memorized theirs. He could not be the exception.
Moira was smiling at him. She snuck out her thumbs and held them up to him, mouthing, you've got this, and so he nodded. Pausing to slow down his breathing and calm himself, Wyatt summoned not a mental image of the poemâbut a heart-drop feeling. He began.
But my love, aren't you tired?
Being polite by not saying
All the things making us unhappy
âWhich is the only way
We know how to love each otherâ
Will not stop us from being unhappy
And like that, he was off to the races.
Wyatt spoke of hyperventilating on kitchen floors and beautiful bus boys who apologized before dashing off when they bumped into you on Broadway; dashing tuxedos, shuffling feet and broken promises at a high school homecomingâthe haunting image of Rashad's house in the aftermath of his anger popped into his head and he suppressed a shiver, rushing on.
There were hot summer afternoons and suburban clichés: trophy husbands, Pilates, country club memberships; and with words, he felt his way through the depiction of a quickly deteriorating aristocratic romance, poisoned by one partner's jealousy and growing obsession with the other.
He remembered drunken nights spent in an island of villas, grandiose two a.m. fights, and violent kisses; all while the two lovers danced in their underwear to a Patti Smith song under the soft glow of a single dim bulb, holding on long after the music had stopped.
I'm sorry, is this too much? I Feel
It is, so maybe. I'm sorry, do you
Recall? Well, fucking perfect,
Since I gave you my heart and
You ate it with a butter knife.
Wyatt continued, speaking with a voice that went from a roar to a whisper without stopping, almost as if he was possessed. He let himself forget his surroundings, gave himself over the poem and surrendered to vulnerability.
"It's important to start by / saying you tell me I look pretty in my / waterproof mascara," he said, reciting the last stanza of the poem almost reverentially.
And I play with your ruffled tie when I
Return the compliment.
But you don't have a face, darling,
You don't have a face.
At first the world came to him in small details: the utter silence, Marco's face wiped clean of its smirk, his bag leaning at an angle against one leg of the desk he'd vacated. Then, one of the indie pop band girls. She wiped at the tears streaming down her cheeks, grinning at him.
And suddenly there was applause. It was one of those ear-deafening, clap-till-your-palms-hurt types, and several moments passed before Wyatt realized that it was all for him. Someone whistled, someone else said his name, and he couldn't help it: he beamed. The cheering grew in volume.
"Settle down everyone," Grace said, and once the applause had sufficiently died down, she added: "He hasn't given his analysis."
Compared to memorizing the titan that was Dispatches, giving its analysis was a piece of cake and Wyatt breezed through his interpretation of the poem, its commentary on capitalism and how it navigated intimacy.
When the bell rang to signify the end of the period, some of his classmates swarmed around him, brimming with questions about the poem or compliments, and only Moira remained when they had all dispersed.
"I have really bad stage fright, and Marco wasn't helping," she said without preamble as he bent down to retrieve his bag. "So thanks for sticking up for me like that."
Wyatt bobbed his head as he slipped one arm of the bag over his shoulder, and when she smiled her nose twitched, shifting her septum ring.
A few awkward beats passed in which they stood saying nothing, and Wyatt was about to excuse himself when he heard Grace's voice call him by name. She was sitting at her desk and waved him over.
"I've got toâ"
"Yeah, sure. No problem." Moira shook her head, shrugging. "Guess I'll see you around."
As they parted, Wyatt made a beeline straight to Grace and as soon as he stopped in front of her table she posed a question to him.
"Do you have any experience with slam poetry?" she asked, and he shook his head. "Performing, thenâyou're part of the drama club?"
When he shook his head again, her gaze turned thoughtful.
"That's impressive," she said after some time. "The poem was good, but you made it resonate and I just assumed you'd maybe had some prior experience."
Suddenly bashful, Wyatt ducked his head, murmuring a quiet thank you.
"You're usually really quiet in class, always hiding on your phone," Grace intoned with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, and when he started to protest she gave a dismissive wave. "I know you pay attention, your grades speak for you."
At that moment the warning bell rang, and his teacher nodded like she had been anticipating it. The doors opened, and her next batch of students began to pour in.
"You should hurry on to your next class, and if you're late you can say I kept you."
"Uh, okay," Wyatt managed finally, "thanks."
"No problem."
As he turned to leave, she called him and he halted, shooting her a look.
"You might want to try your luck at performing, or entertainment. You're a natural."
â â â â â â â â â â â â
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n o t e
four updates in one day to say: that i'm sorry i ghosted. that i don't mean to be unreliable as i have an obligation, but i haven't been doing very well. that i'm getting better. that i'm here now, and i want to stay. that if you're seeing this update, whether you're a new reader who just stumbled on this book, or an OGâthank you. you are the real MVPs. you are my superior. that you can expect to be sick of seeing notifications for this book through the rest of this month, so brace yourself.
yes Dispatches is a real poem, and yes it is complete, and yes i wrote it for TBC. i've been so excited to show it to you guys and i'm wondering what you think about it from the little excerpts you've seen. let me know.
finally, i've been consuming an ungodly amount of BL (usually Asian) dramas lately, and so this heavyweight comeback (almost 8k words!) feels only natural. some of my favorites so far are: Bad Buddy, KinnPorsche, Not Me, Semantic Error, and To My Star, and Triage.