Brianna

They tell me she's a dreamer, adopted at age six by the
Dreamers of Newark, New Jersey. And she's in the clouds, it's clear:
dazed and gazing the days away til she turns twelve. They tell me
school's not been the most important issue in her life:
"social/emotional concerns have taken precedence," they write.
When I meet her she cries and clutches a cheap plastic album
of her and her father who died. I, the godless, pray he wasn't shot.

I find her science test and rip away page two:

7. Imagine a world where there was no acceleration.
Explain one problem you'd have, it asks.

Find the way to get into space or believe in god
and tell him to make the world change please, she answers.

She tells me this Halloween they handed out bullets instead of candy.
They tell me her haze is a Sertraline dream, one of ten million
prescribed. She tells me she don't be doing that no more, that crazy stuff,
'cause she be goin' to special ed this time. They tell me to check never,
sometimes; often, everyday on a form that never ends. I check and check and check.
I tell her look at me, at me, at me so I can tell her that I care and she
can see. She tells me that she's crazy and she's just like her mother,
pants down, outside, pregnant. I tell her look at me. I tell her that she's not.

I look for god and pray for math and reading to make the change he hasn't yet.