extended tangerine guilt trip

the class was a dreary beige painted cinder block brick-walled boredom sanctuary populated by fast fixed eyed strangers. i sat with my pencil in hand awaiting direction with a panging nervousness creeping through my chest, like it was the first day of kindergarten all over again and i was abandoned to try and find my way alone, but this time was different. i knew i was in poetry class despite its disguise of strange scenery. i knew that the source of my nervousness was my lack of preparation. i had no poem to share so i bore my burden of shame quietly behind the rows of anxious students until someone passed me a squeegee. yes a squeegee, like the ones at the gas station where you pull in after hours of insect splatter has baptised your windsheild to the point of vainly looking through the fog of death you bestowed upon the bug brethren only to find the road ahead a hazy visage of what it was before you departed. yes a squeegee, only this one had a razorblade edge in place of its normally rubber counterpart. so i was twirling my new-found toy about in the air, spinning it propellar-like in my hands; jabbing and poking at invisible foes, when my eyes caught the neon tangerine orange extensions of the young ebony sister sitting in the desk directly in front of me. her hair was amazing; wound in and out and around; swirling and spiraling; weaving ropelike through itself like wellcrafted boy scout knots in the throws of orgy. i became infatuated with her hair. i wanted to touch it but somehow couldn't bring myself to, like by reaching out to it i would somehow spoil it, rotting it like the beautiful fruit it borrowed it's color from. suddenly the razor squeegee began gliding toward the hair, my arm attached to its handle, me an innocent bystander to its intentions. as the thin edge of the blade combed through the twines of orange they began to fall lightly to the floor. the entire motion of the blade was effortless, so much so that the young sister felt none of its misplaced wrath. i sat in glassy eyed awe of the scene. it was like watching beautiful and horrible wrapped in a blanket writhing in and out of one another in the throes of lust. one after another the tangerine strings floated to the floor until the back of her head was covered in her natural kinky black curls sparsely populated by the fragmented remnants of neon. looking at the back of her head i felt the instant guilt indicative of the aftermath of climax. as if she could smell this she slowly turned around and faced me. in her eyes was a look of pure violation. voluptuous tears inched down her round face. "you cut off all my hair" she said through her mask of wetness. "i know. i'm sorry. i didn't..." i knew it was hopeless to try and explain, or even attempt to apologize. there was a dark black bowling ball nestled in the pit of my stomach, pinning me to my seat behind the aftermath of my actions. steeping in guilt i looked up to the blackboard and saw a man, middle-aged with gold rimmed glasses ; a chalk-stained white-with-blue-pinstripes dress shirt and navy blue slacks. he was scrawling on the board something, at first blurred, but then mildly perceptible through the glaring fluorescent lights. they were math equations. quantum physics more precisely; and i could not understand what any of them meant, nor why this was no longer my poetry class.