In school I snipped out heart-shaped valentines
so overzealously the teacher tried
to stop me as I sliced past dotted lines
and severed Jenny’s heart in two. She cried.
Then Tanya sneered, too nasty to resist;
she had a face no spit wad could eclipse,
so I crushed her finished heart inside my fist
and skewered it with twisted paperclips.
My victim shrieked; the teacher thought me mad
and led me, red-faced, ear-first down the hall
where I lost the only decent heart I had
to pacify the lonely principal
who sighed and droned about how soft we are,
how bad this damned day cuts, how deep and how far.