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Michelle

By Lu Liu

Illustration by Albert M Nikhla

Michelle was her middle name; no one called her that

But me. I was in her history class,

And when my classmates called her “Miss” when classes began

And her first name after they ended,

I called her Michelle.

After class I walked with her,

Together to her office, then alone to my locker.

No one walked with me for I was a weirdo, no one with her

For she was the deputy, and being in a school’s senior leadership

Was an original sin. Not everyone’s tears she had dried like mine

In her office, the day I broke down;

To them she was anyone, from history teacher

To policymaker, to students’ nemesis.

Anyone but Michelle.

When Teacher’s Day came and I saw slurs

Written on her office door with scarlet spray paint, when those my age

Attacked authority for its own sake, when she the deputy was deemed

Inferior to a human being,

I saw her.

A daughter, a sister, a mother with a three-year-old son, a human being.

I saw Michelle.

And when I visited my high school

Years after graduation, nothing but an empty chair

Greeted me in her office. I was told that she

Left shortly after I did, but not where she had gone.

Back to university I went, as if I had any choice other than

Mailing a postcard, stamped but with the address part being

“Please send this wherever you see fit”.

Where I was supposed to put down her full name,

I put down “Michelle”.


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Posted On: March 25, 2024
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