Wash Your Face, Darling

In fourth grade, I charted the horoscopes of every one of my classmates using a tattered old book my mom let me bring to school,
In middle school, when I asked the teacher "May I please go to the bathroom?" It was only to check the stalls on every floor, making sure I didn't just hear the sobs echoing through the air vents in my head,
Often times, I'd have to poke my head in to tell the teacher I'd be escorting a red-nosed, puddle-eyed kid to the nurse or counselor I caught on my way back,
With a nod of their head they would tell me "You'll catch up",
I figured they were talking about school assignments,
They weren't.
In high school, in between exams and merging lunches, and sometimes after a bathroom break, I'd see them again,
The teary-eyed, the broken-hearted, the stressed-out exam-taker, the expectant mother suffering from panic attacks, the child without their parents in a dark, scary, grown-up world that the brick walls couldn't hide us from,
Cowering in corners, hiding behind brand-name hoodies and drug-store smoke to wash their throats clean of the salt-water aftertaste.
All the while, afraid of every shadow, every glimpse of their own reflection.
So I'd poke my head into the nurse's office, I'd let a woman in a suit know that I was this frightened teenager's escort,
All the while my eyes flashed warnings to the two-faced instructors who couldn't give them remedy,
"Don't you dare lie to them. Don't you dare tell him this test determines his future, don't tell her that she's giving birth to a mistake, don't you dare treat this soul like there is nothing on this green earth that could ever love them the way that they want. You back off, you go away, you let someone hold them for a second, just a second, just one moment, so they can feel like the world isn't going to crash around them like it is."
"Don't send them back into that world. Send them back to me."
All the while, the teachers nodded.
"You'll catch up"
It wasn't until I graduated that I realized what those words meant,
So after high school, I roamed the bathroom stalls again,
I poked my head in to every classroom to let the teachers know I'd be leaving for good,
I gave a lasting embrace to every scholarship-winner, every loving mother, every happy-romantic,
And then I ran,
I ran down the hallways and down the staircases, out through doors and through empty football fields,
I reached home, and wondered if the quiet sobbing I heard in the upstairs bathroom was all in my head,
Opening the door and pulling back the shower-curtain, I saw her.
"You've caught up." I said.
There I was, blotchy-faced, sobbing ugly and tearing at the seams with the fear eating at my veins,
Here I was, sobbing into pillows, biting my tongue, sinking my fingernails into my hands to keep my words from spilling through the tips and onto staining skin,
Here I was, cowering and shivering alone in a large world that had grown while I had stared it down all those years ago,
Being fearless for the ones who knew too much fear,
Here I was, scared, alone, heartbroken, and fearful of the abyss that finally had stared back and blinked.
I pulled that girl up, gave her a hug, and turned her to the mirror,
I said the words I had said to every kid before her,
"Wash your face, darling. It's going to be alright."