The Miseducation of Sara Lucarelli

Alarm.
Mum shouts up - something about toast. 
I jump into the bathroom, run back and put on the music. Run back and shower. Get dressed.
The walk to school is hurried. Cold finders hold the cigarette out, down towards the pavement to stop the smoke getting into my hood. It might be raining; it feels like the air is always standardly wet.
Bus rolls past. They pass the pass. Dash it out the window: re-present. Seat allocation is fierce but it's almost always better to stand. If a fire starts, best be by the exit.
Where's Peggy?
Cracked out.
Her art coursework's due today.
Somewhere it flies around the estate in tatters, soggy and spoilt.


Travel through corridors; you shout, they shout back. You laugh and point and pursue course aimlessly with no sense of urgency, round in circles for all it matters: and then the bell. 
Police arrive with dogs, that sniff and chase the girls and make them cry. The boys stand back. Nah nah nah. Reh teh teh. 
"There is an understanding as a school, that there is zero tolerance on holding offensive weapons of any variety on the premises." 
Do what you want out there. 


Lipgloss smeared on mirrors, sat on floors, phones on, credit done.
Hitch the skirt up, lower that top, you need more eyeliner, perfume: ziiiiiiiiip doorcloses and laughter roars.
It's fucking freezing outside 
but we wander and encounter. Words are whispered as sirens sound around and around, circling - fading.
Panoramic views with streetlamp light casting shadows on the high-rise. Drunks under the tree; 
and we wheel past, reeling in teenage joy.
A telephone box lies partly in fragments all over the floor. The shards spill over onto the road - we crunch over them in heels we can't walk in.


The lights are off inside, and the air is thick with sex and conflict. 
His afro was tied in two bunches, one on either side of his head, as he pulled the gun out. 
Fire exit doors smash open, close, music resumes and the beat goes on.
In constant movement, all night. Dancing in and out of three small rooms, filled with smoke and melodies, stares; the stench of odourless alcohol, sweat
blood and tears.
Everyone watches as she gets dragged by her weave, across the floor and out into the street.


In class, talk is rife. It carries rumours and statements like a crowd-surf, through the rooms 
It writhes around like a snake in the grass.
"She's pregnant. It was Cassie's man".
Atmosphere, charged with intention, confused perceptions of
acceptance and loyalty; ever-changing
with the tide of term.