Purgatory Is Like Junior High

Purgatory is like junior high but with priorities reversed.

Whispering and passing notes and making snide asides

and daydreaming through classes and the rest of all

the faux pas for which we were cursed in middle school

are here the main event. There are no social studies,

decimals, percents. exponents; nothing will impel you to pick

up The Scarlet Pimpernel – oh no, this realm supposed

to be between Above and Hell dispels all cliché notions

of the functions of the schools whose rules we all were taught

must be obeyed. When we’re done with Purgatory, or when

Purgatory’s done with us, we will have played with nuance,

tone, relation, hint and tint, the aura of the fauna and the flora

not their biological particulars – the breath of feeling, not

the bone of argument: all this will waft through its curriculum

and where we’ll be beyond it isn’t possible to know. Although

one wonders if the secret is there’s nowhere else to go.

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