"Why didn't he stick up for me?", High school memory that haunts me. Options

[*CrackedRearView*]

The halls were particularly crowded today,
So it comes as a faint surprise –
That my ears decided to pinpoint the destruction of feelings.
There was a strangely sullen look on his face,
One that is ordinarily more discernable as cheery –
One that does not offer a twinge in the heart.
He always smiles at me and most obviously regards me,
And it exists, however misguided –
A genuine desire to be accepted among his peers.
I can parallel his high school experience to min,
He’s clumsy, displaced, confused –
He’s adjusting to the mores and customs of a strange place.
It’s one of those things he’ll get over,
He’ll learn to navigate the halls with confidence –
He’ll learn to be a teenager, to be cool.
But it was this instance, an inexorable freshman,
Soaking in the boorish remarks of a pedantic fool –
Learning the opposition to maturity.
“You probably have to squint,” he had said,
“To see through the fat pockets on your face,” –
Childishly sniggering while I trailed inches behind.
“No I don’t” crept feebly out of his mouth,
And he bleakly set his eyes on a point on the floor –
Trying desperately to stifle tears.
And I remember, seconds before the bell sounded,
He turned and looked at me morosely –
With an absolutely unmistakable countenance of betrayal.
And I just kept walking, and I just kept my mouth shut,
And I just defied everything I’ve been taught --
Everything my mother so painstakingly instilled in me.
I flouted the most important ideal,
I ignored worthy counsel, and for what? –
For the false comfort of a blanket of pretense?
I didn’t help him; I didn’t even lift my lips,
And I’m only left with one image –
One haunting illustration in my head.
I’m left to imagine him returning home,
Tossing his book bag down in anger –
And thinking to himself, while he represses the urge to cry,

“Why didn’t he stick up for me?”

[illumineering]

This should be mandatory reading for the entire cB community. What an honest look into the soul and spirit of teenage angst! This vivid portrayl of an ordinary encounter that could have taken place in any school, on any given day, is poignant.

Well done!