I really don't want to go.

The three brothers were sent home from school with headlice just last week.

I don't want to go.

I missed tonight; tomorrow's my only shot.

Three boys, all ungainly; one too big, one too small, the other with a mind that's ten years behind his body. The younger two are the ones I've had in class. My room still smelled after they left each day. I called their mom to express the need for new shoes for one of them, but that only solved part of the problem. Hair uncut, unbrushed; things falling out of it. Other students knew which chairs they'd used and tried to avoid those seats.

I don't want to go; don't want to hug them; don't want to be touched...

Don't want to face this futility. Don't dare to hope for a future for these boys--already misguided, but now, even less guided. I don't want to go to their dad's funeral.

I don't suppose they do, either.