Cursed Class of 2007 - Tamer Said Mostafa

Nobody ever taught us how to cope with ourselves,
how to awaken a fentanyl-laced anesthesia
as if the heavens we fabricated, would descend

from all directions. Instead, we risked fracturing
the wicked sculpture of a skull on pavement
for old, sacred toys to make it unscathed and count

backwards behind a closet door. The mortality
was spontaneous at the outset, its thin spine visible
in a brass casing that could persuade even the best

of us. One anniversary later, we are convinced
redemption is best suited for the pessimists
too foolish to ruminate over their fortuitous nature.

(For our senior class project, we made a short film
about a student chaperoned by an executioner
whose hologram rationalizes the city and its

potential.) Nowhere did anyone think the omens
were self-inflicted, that there may have been phenomena
of children hanging paper mache figurines

through the wrist, and within reach to replace us.