Lucas Wildner: No bad days

No bad days 

(CW: suicide)
for G.

The new assistant principal's email signature
distracts me from whatever announcement.
An optimism so aggressive
as to insist on happiness.
What to call the day last spring
when we gathered at the Botanical Gardens,
bodies pressing against walls,
finding small pockets of shade?
We dripped anyways, dreaded
the desert summer to come.
Our exclusive inconvenience.
An alumnus hanged himself in his dorm.
Coaches, uncles, classmates called the occasion impossible.
What to call that day? I thought it obvious,
once—students surviving their teachers,
that a person could wake up
and choose happiness like a favorite tie.
Now I scan the headlines
mornings after every prom and graduation. How many
exceptions to break belief?
I meant to store the program
in some folder. Safely archived, forgettable.
Instead, it stayed tucked inside my right car door.
On not enough mornings, I remember
to glance at his grainy portrait
before stepping onto campus.
Some of you already know adolescence
was never a right, would bitter-laugh
if I were to end this poem declaring 20 too young.
In their ongoing survival my students swaggered
like immortals. 17-year-olds in the desks year after year.
Chaperone at the fountain of youth,
I believed them once.

Lucas Wildner (he/him) lives in Seattle where he is repairing his relationships to German and English and... Ghost City Review published his debut chapbook Fluency in June 2022 and his chapbook [eyes emoji] will be published by hot mess house in summer 2023. He is a Pushcart 2023 nominee. He can be found on twitter, sadly: @wucas_lildner.