10,000 Words Part Seven: Playground

The playground is wide and wet and shiny. When I looked out of the window I saw a lake full of pigeons, but now I’m out here it’s hard, too hard to jump in and swim away from this. Someone has painted a spiraling snake on the Tarmac, its sinuous form segmented and numbered. I know numbers. That woman thinks I don’t. She tried to teach me “one”
– One!
She thinks I don’t know the first thing about school.
But I do. You have to keep your head above the water, because the water is hardened tar, swimming with snakes.