wilder days

5. mad woman

and when you say I seem angry

i get more angry

and there's nothin' like a mad woman

what a shame she went mad

no one likes a mad woman

you made her like that

and you'll poke that bear 'til her claws come out

---

"What's that?" Tatumn asked, putting her pencil down. She poked her head over my shoulder and looked at the screen of my laptop.

"Metaphysics." I sighed, turning backwards in my desk to face her. "My physics teacher is making us look up the difference and do research or something. They have nothing to do with each other so I have no idea why we're doing this."

"What even is metaphysics? What's the difference?" She asked.

"Physics is the study of matter and energy properties, metaphysics is the study of reality and how it came to be. I don't know, I'm reading something about Aristotle in relation to metaphysics right now, it's pretty interesting." I told her, looking back at my screen. "I'll have to get more into it later."

"Honestly I don't understand a word you just said. You're too smart for me." Tatumn picked up her pencil again. "Did you finish Katz's assignment?"

"Tatumn, we're writing poems. It's easy as hell. I have no idea what this has to do with what we have to learn though." I showed her my paper with my three finished poems on it.

"Seems to be a theme of your classes." She rolled her eyes. "Can you help me?"

"Sure." I took a look at her paper. "You have almost nothing written down."

"I couldn't think of how to rhyme that line with anything." She sounded defeated.

"That's because you're writing a poem about dogs. If you want anything good, you need to come from the heart. What's something you feel really passionately about?" I asked.

"Dogs."

"Tatumn."

"What?"

"I mean something emotional."

"Dogs have emotions."

"You're missing the mark here." I sigh. "How about this. Pick a person, someone you love, a human, and just write about them."

"Alright. I'll try that." She nodded. "Who'd you write about?"

"A few different people." I handed her my paper and she nodded once she'd read through the poems.

"Damn. These are good." She gave the papers back to me and leaned on my desk. "I'm sorry about everything with you and Cash. I can't say I didn't notice though."

"Was it that obvious?" I leaned my head on my hand and stared at her. Tatumn nodded and gave me a sad smile.

"Yeah. You don't sit near each other at lunch, you don't talk about him, you didn't want anything to do with him at the party on Saturday...Sammy, it's very obvious." She put her hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

"I didn't want it to be, but it is what it is." I sighed. "Enough about me. What's new with you?" I thought back to what Soph had told me in the locker room on Saturday and wondered if what Skye had told her was true. I like to claim I hate gossip, but sometimes its impossible to avoid.

"Eh, nothing much." She picked up her pencil and started drawing something in the margins of her paper.

"Come on, Tate. I know you've got something." I persisted. "There's gotta be something I don't know. You been talking to anyone recently?"