The flashbacks are very rare
really just quick snaps of images
gone before I can think of them fully,
and they’ve faded greatly over time.

Still, I haven’t completely forgotten the partial day
I worked at a Special Education Day Care
up in Massachusetts, right out of college.

I was looking for employment
doing anything. I sought work as an assistant
as a security guard, as a mental health counselor,
as an educator, and, apparently, as a day worker
at a daycare facility.

The kids were tiny
and there were a lot of us
to care for them,
maybe one for every three of them.
There were learning problems among the children
but also a lot of physical issues.
In my flashbacks, I see images of lionitis,
like from the movie Mask.
I also see partially collapsed skulls.
I don’t know what that’s associated with.

We would play games with the kids,
guiding them around a park-like campus,
and I remember helping them to eat.
This is all shrouded in a haze of thirty three years passing.
During the day, everything seemed perfectly all right,

but the state of the kids struck me as undeniably sad
afterward.
Their physical issues burned within me,
less and less, until today.

I did not go back.
I don’t remember even considering it.
I soon found two jobs, one full time
and one part-time
and was able to fill my days
away from the children
that obviously needed someone
but someone who didn’t feel
quite so horrified in their presence.

I hope the school is doing well.