Monsters

(I used to be a teacher. My last year teaching a student poisoned my drink. The principal refused to involve the authorities and the student received only one day of in school suspension sitting in the office doing worksheets and was returned to my class the next day. It wasn't the only reason I quit teaching but it was one of the last straws. I had been bullied when I was a student and I decided I was done being abused by both students and administration.) She put the poison in my cup laughed like a lunatic as I drank the sound the same as I’d heard a thousand times echoing off the walls of classrooms and corridors bathroom stalls and halls Sinister as a serpent sinking its fangs into my flesh Snickering as I seized in my death throes Harassed and tortured like a heretic just as I’d been back then Burn the witch! My blood congealing into goo too thick to pass through my veins Venom seeping into every pore Why did I think it would be different than before The same malevolent monsters I once knew hidden behind the masks of cherubic children only today the tack in the chair is a deadly dare