One (Sarah Crossan)

Reality

Taped to Tippi’s locker is a note:

Why don’t you

go back to the zoo???

Yasmeen grabs the paper,

scrunches it

into a tight ball,

and launches it

along the hallway.

‘Assholes!’ she shouts.

‘You’re the animals!’

Students with books in their arms

lean on lockers and against one another.

They stare

wide-eyed and

open-mouthed,

glad for an excuse to ogle us unhindered.

I knew it was way too much

to ask everyone to accept us—

or even to leave us

alone.

Yesterday was a fluke and today

reality has arrived.

Yasmeen says,

‘They’re afraid of you,

like they’re afraid of me.

We’re different

and that’s bad.’

Tippi stops us and squints.

‘Why are they afraid of you?’

she asks Yasmeen,

her voice a spiky challenge.

Yasmeen turns.

‘I have HIV,’ she says, quite simply

and

tucks tiny strands of hair behind her heavily studded ears.

‘I reek of death,

of low life expectancy. Like you guys,

I guess.’

‘Yes,’ we say in unison

and head for geometry to work on problems

a lot less complicated

than our own.