Honorary mention in the 2009 SNHU Poetry Contest
Bullies
by Mckendy Fils-Aimé
They ride on the backs of giant doves,
clip their wings and watch them
dive earthward.
Like fleas nestled between
hairs, they wait to jump on victims,
transfer their disease.
In these halls, they live in paraphrase,
read after-school specials like acrostic,
seek epiphanies between the breaks.
They’ve lived in homes with backhanded
I love yous and dreams of absentee fathers.
Good childhoods hide under their beds, like
kind monsters, bogeymen of serenity.
They’ve forgotten the rules of nature,
that some creatures are bound to live in mud.
While others search for sky puzzles,
they wait to prey
on stagnant heartbeats.
