Author: roselevine40

I watched 
your knees bend
as small waves 
crashed
against your shins.

Out of the water, 
you approached me,
extended your right leg
and dragged your heel across the sand.
The ocean on your side. 
The island on mine.

I leaned forward
kissing your shoulder,
your body cool from the swim.
But, all I could taste was 
salt.

You pushed me 
back, 
gesturing towards the line.

I covered my eyes, erasing you 
and the sun. Desperately 
counting the seconds 
until
high tide.

“Who will she be when she emerges from this grief” (Doyle 271).

For three days, I curled myself into a ball and remained on the couch. In hindsight, maybe I was sitting Shiva, minus the uncomfortable chairs. I cried. I watched lightning – the best prestidigitation in the night sky. Grief had physically and emotionally paralyzed me. My heart felt heavy for the mothers, for the fathers, for the siblings, for the teachers, for the best friends, for the neighbors, for the aunts, uncles, and cousins. 

On Tuesday, May 24, 2022, three tragedies unfolded. First, a student was stabbed and died just blocks away from our school. Second, an 18 year old in Uvalde, Texas, killed 19 children and two teachers in their elementary school. Third, my former student died while studying overseas.

Twenty-three lives. Communities shattered. Families forever changed. 

My school shifted to virtual for the remainder of the week, and I Zoomed with students via my couch. As one wise child said, “It just feels terribly unfair. All of it.” I’m not a grief counselor. Nor do I know what to say to instill a sense of hope in such a dark time. So, I deflected. I asked questions, made jokes, tried to offer a temporary distraction from the sadness. I blinked back my own tears to spare this student from my ugly grief. I promised to check in on her later, and I did.

I talked to my friend and colleague who spoke from a place of anger – anger towards our own school, our own administration and Central Office and school board. She reminded me that, “Students need structure. They crave it. There is an abundance of research to prove that. Why, then, do we shift away from it?”

I texted with another friend and colleague who participated in a Q&A with administration yesterday via Zoom. She saw this same anger manifest virtually. I imagined the cat meme with the white lady screaming and pointing her finger. It’s warranted.

So, what do we do?

I recently finished reading Glennon Doyle’s Untamed, which, in many ways, feels like a personal love letter from her to me. She writes about grief. For her, she grieved the end of her marriage. Doyle poignantly asks, “Who will she be when she emerges from this grief” (Doyle 271). I can choose to mourn. I can choose to remain paralyzed. But, I can choose to be someone who problem solves. I want this grief to transform me, my school community, this nation. So, let’s go.

Schools across the U.S. have taken the wrong approach post-quarantine. We have said that children are traumatized from the pandemic, from masks, from change. Yes, this trauma is real. However, we also forget how resilient children can be. When we all returned to in-person school in the fall of 2021, our students needed structure – “craved it!” An attendance policy, a tardy policy, a real grading policy. A new normal. These policies aren’t to be punitive; they can be, as Alice Walker says, “drenched in love.” I need you to show up on time to class because I love and care about you. I would like you to come to school because I want you to expand your beautiful mind. 

When I read bell hooks’ All About Love five years ago, she professed, “Contrary to what we may have been taught to think, unnecessary and unchosen suffering wounds us but need not scar us for life. It does mark us. What we allow the mark of our suffering to become is in our own hands.” We as educators have the ability to move students forward, wounded but unscarred. 

With a return to in-person school, our administration also modified lunch. For about 12 years, we had four staggered lunches. They were short – maybe 27 minutes – and the kids often complained about shoveling food down quickly or waiting 26 minutes in a lunch line. But, when the school houses thousands of students, this seemed like a practical way to feed them and keep them safe. This year, the admin rolled out a new plan: an hour and seven minutes of freedom. Students could eat anywhere in the building. Walk through on any day, and you’ll see kids lying on the hallway floor, playing pickup basketball in the gym, making up quizzes in teachers’ classrooms. In theory, this is magic! A healthy brain break. Time for students to congregate with friends. A designated period to complete missing work. In a school as large as ours, though, fights broke out, kids sneaked off campus, and then the worst thing happened – a student died during lunch.

In our own community, I want this grief to transform us so that we reinstate policies. We create structure. We keep kids safe. We make kids feel loved. 

The tragedy in Uvalde – only a week+ after the tragedy in Buffalo – felt “terribly unfair.” It felt like Sandy Hook. It felt like Parkland. It felt like why the fuck are assault rifles in anyone’s hands. It felt like the U.S. is light years behind every other country in the world. It felt like the NRA has their fingers tightly wrapped around many politicians’ wallets. 

I did not anticipate the door theory. I should have known Ted Cruz and Lindsay Graham would utter nonsense but not a one door theory. One door in. Same door out. This, they said, will prevent future mass shootings at schools, movie theaters, malls, supermarkets. Translation – these fools cannot speak out against the NRA. They won’t. 

Last night on Don Lemon’s show on CNN, a psychology professor from Emory spoke truth. He told us that the Republican party will not ban assault rifles. This is not 1994 when both sides of the aisle collaborated to sign the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act. The professor is not pro-assault rifles, but he is in favor of change. He explained something tangible that Republicans and Democrats could do right now: anyone who wants to buy a gun must be 25 years and older. The professor talked about the frontal lobe’s development and then supported it with astounding statistics. Many of the murderers in these mass shootings are men ages 15-24. Changing the age in which someone can obtain a gun seems like a viable solution. 

I don’t yet know what happened to my sweet, compassionate, thoughtful, brilliant student. But, I cried. She was multilingual. She was brave. She had the potential to pursue anything she wanted. It feels “terribly unfair.” 

Personally. Locally. Nationally. We have the chance to transform this grief into action so that the twenty-three who died this week have a legacy of love and hope. We are wounded, but we are not scarred.

It’s past 3AM. My body is curled tightly under blankets, and my chest lightly rises and falls, dancing to the rhythms of twilight. 

But, INSTANTLY, I’m up. Covers thrown. Body stretched into an X across the mattress. Heartbeat accelerated. They’re here, and the clamor cannot be ignored.

In October, something eerie happened. Haunted by the ghosts of Poe and Lenore, an influx of birds invaded my lil community. Each night, hundreds of crows traveled miles to roost in the trees above our restaurants, above our grocery store, and adjacent to my apartment. The cawing is deafening, as if bird brothers are pecking out each other’s eyes. I woke up three or four times a night, worried that Hitchcock’s classic had come to fruition. 

I’m self-aware-enough to know that I’m dramatic. I’m also someone who lives for a good story. So, as I relayed my cawnflict to friends and family, I saw raised eyebrows, widened eyes. My words could not accurately capture this midnight torture.

However, the crows were evening problems while pigeons invaded the daylight. Even the Bird Lady from Mary Poppins would have been disgusted by these rats with wings. Their bodies occupied crosswalks and streets. I knew my distaste for the birds wasn’t mine alone when I witnessed not one – but two – pugnacious drivers honk at pigeons in hopes they would flutter away. When the stubborn pigeons failed to fly, each driver committed a violent crime. I can still hear the weight of the car, the crunch of the bird under the tire. A collective gasp from us onlookers. Fowl play.

The birdens continued, for the crows and pigeons SHIT everywhere. Slimy, white feces cover sidewalks and benches. As the weather grew colder, the community workers could no longer power wash away the poop for fear of turning everything to Elsa ice. Slipping on patches of ice seemed more daunting than walking on guano.

Feeling frustrated, and being one who likes to problem-solve, I conducted research. Did I Google “how to poison birds” at work? Yes, but I quickly realized that becoming Abby Brewster would be an expensive and difficult venture, not to mention a hefty fine and time in prison. If I’m serving, it won’t be for a murder of crows. I have shot a BB gun before, and I imagined myself perched at my window, the Lee Harvey Oswald (too soon?) of birds. That seemed aggressive, more so than the pigeon hit and run. Dad suggested I contact local falconers. He relayed how falcons are often brought to the Jersey shore to help “manage” the seagulls and pigeons. I smiled at the thought of seeing the food chain cycle happen right outside my window.

I know my complaints fell on deaf ears for months, and friends and family waited for me to eat crow. But, a week before winter break, I received the most validating and satisfying email of my life. The manager of my apartment complex shared that BIRD CANNONS had been rented by our community in hopes of “humanely” ridding us of crows and pigeons. I envision someone dressed as Napoleon Bonaparte standing on top of the parking garage next to the cannon, squawking orders in French. As the cannon explodes, Napoleon plugs his ears and then jumps in (arc de) triumph. Simultaneously, thousands of birds take to the air, fleeing for their lives. Unfortunately, I wasn’t around when shots were fired, but, over the past six weeks, there has been a 50% reduction of bird troubles. 

Another moment of validation arrived via text the other night when my friend Courtney, dining at the local Mexican restaurant, said, “Oh my god the crows!” Can there be no peace when eating a quesadilla?

Some nights, I sleep through, unbothered by the caws. Other nights, I sleepwalk to my living room window and stare at the crows roosting in the tree. I lightly tap on the glass, wondering if I’m disturbing their peace.

The librarian helps you retrieve a love story.
She points to the card catalog and
slides open the drawer that 
resides in your hippocampus.
You smirk and dash,
running fingers along 
dusty shelves.
The book’s binding is weathered, but
you grab that work of fiction,
the one that details 
the dinners at the Italian restaurant that no longer exists,
the late nights analyzing Cool Hand Luke and A Confederacy of Dunces.
Your pointer finger, 
the one accidentally sliced,
guides you from word to word
memory to memory.


The librarian beckons you back 
pulling out 
another drawer that
resides in your amygdala.
You grimace, withdraw.
It is she, not you, who
tosses back sheets 
that cover shelves.
You press hands against ears as
she reads excerpts from 
that work of nonfiction,
the one that details
your mom’s fall,
the choke hold. 
The librarian pries 
each of your fingers 
and screams
        words
        memories.

I search for you,
flipping pages 
of newspaper,
(black smudges on fingers)
scrolling images
of media,
(bloodshot eyes)
hoping to get
just one glimpse 
of you.

Is this an act 
of desperation,
longing?
Or,
am I waiting for you
to die?

I fantasize, darling,
of your lungs
like two misshapen vases
filled to the brim 
with heavy tumors,
your throat
overgrown with poisonous vines
air trapped in crevices,
your body convulsing
in fits of finality.


I dream, dear,
of your car 
crinkled like an accordion,
shattered glass from windows and bottles,
foam dripping from 
mouth to chin,
your body draped over 
the deflated airbag.

And therapists and family and friends and lovers and strangers and everyone
tell me to 
get over it,
and I will


when you are dead.