His last recess

They called him by names that weren’t his own,
and laughter returned in flocks, like stones.
They stole his breath with stares,
they emptied his world with phrases sewn to his chest.

Each morning was a suit inherited with fear,
each step to school, a war without truce.
He hid behind his backpack as one hides a heart,
trying to keep others from reading the maps of his sadness.

The messages arrived like acid rain,
doors closed with the laughter of others.
He silently begged to be left alone,
but the silence of the rest became a noose.

His home was a place of contained breath;
his room, an island where he tried to rebuild words.
He counted the hours until recess ended,
he counted the excuses that healed nothing.

One morning the door did not find his hand,
a voice that once cried for help no longer asked to leave.
The news spread clumsily, unaware of the weight:
“he’s gone”—and no one knew when they had stopped listening.

A corner was left that no one dared to face:
his chair, his backpack, his stretched-out silence.
The boys who laughed remained just boys,
but now guilt had a name too heavy for their pockets.

And in the afternoons, when recess falls into shadow,
someone leaves a flower and looks at the ground, afraid,
because understanding came too late: words can kill,
and the emptiness of a child cannot be patched with regrets.

This is not a story to glorify or to silence,
it is a warning that asks for hands, not stares.
If you see someone suffering, don’t look away:
ask, reach out—don’t wait until everything breaks.