In my dream, I’m back in the classroom,
this time as a visiting author. To get the room quiet,
the teacher demands order, her strategy—shame.
She focuses on a particular student, a boy, who is trying
his earnest to comply; she berates him for his trying.
The rest of the class mimics her, chanting:
Shame! Shame! Shame! And the boy is crushed,
just crushed. Which is when I ask myself,
What is mine to do? I’m just a visitor, after all, but
how can I talk about writing when all I feel is shame—
for the boy, for the children, for the teacher, myself?  

That’s when the tingling starts,
this static, seizing me, charging me,
sizzling through every vein.  

I know what you’re thinking: that my body was falling asleep,
and I was just dreaming, but no, this was real. My body
in that room was real, and there was no choice, not really—
no turning back, no leaving—I knew I would speak,
even if it meant never visiting another classroom again,
I would speak, and I did, into that room resoundingly:  

Where shame lives, nobody learns

and everyone went still
the boy, the children, the teacher, my self
and everyone was lifted.