Thread Bare

Student teaching will nearly break

you. You will teeter nervously behind your mentor,

certain that she resents your pathetic

attempts to supplement her lessons with

fragmented interjections.

The students will visibly roll their eyes at your

attempts to make them laugh. When you finally succeed in sharing

a genuine laugh with the class,

your nervous stomach will emit a fart

that will ring as clearly as a duck quack. Your credibility—lost.

The morning before the principal is scheduled to come observe your teaching,

you will find your elderly cat dead in his favorite sleeping spot.

As you teach, you will get lost:

will lose your train of thought

will forget what you’ve said

will give inaccurate information

will contradict your mentor in front of her own class.

The other teachers in the department will mock you behind your back.

“Why does she wear those loud patterns?”

“She acts like such a suck-up.”

“Our kids will totally eat her alive.”

For lack of time, you will stop exercising completely,

gain weight, endure the flare up of your deafening lower back pain.

You will never have time to spend with your new husband,

and the honeymoon phase will unravel violently.

Before the year is up, the time that you do actually spend together

will be spent arguing, and you will sleep on the couch.

Alone.

You won’t spend any time with your friends,

and will have the lonely realization that they don’t bother reaching out to

you anymore.

When your car breaks down, not having friends to call for help,

you will shell out money that you don’t have

for cab rides.

There’s a story of a young boy plagued by continuous anxiety and restlessness.

A goddess appeared to him one day and presented him with a golden thread.

“Whenever you want a moment to pass, just pull on the thread.”

As he sat in school the next day, vexed by his assignment,

he pulled the thread.

He was transported to his high school graduation.

He didn't know how he had achieved this accomplishment, and felt empty.

He pulled the thread.

He was transported to his wedding day.

He looked upon his strange bride and felt nothing for her.

He pulled the thread.

He arrived at his son’s graduation.

He felt no pride for his son.

He pulled the thread. He pulled the thread. He pulled the thread. Death.

Anxiety and restlessness will come.

These moments, these trials,

will beg you to fast forward.

Put down the thread.

Walk the line. One painful step in front of the other.

Until your feet grow callused.
And they know where they've been.