I realize that the quality of my own writing here is spotty. The majority of my blathering is far less eloquent that I aspire to, but it�s the stumbling idiocy from which stuff I love is born. I write because I make myself. For two years, I wrote rarely, and poorly at that. I wrote in tumult and tumult only. Squeezing language from my somewhat atrophied brain is what is required in order to keep it agile. Much as I work my body to keep it healthy, I write to keep my mind more aware of its surroundings. I�m not talking about the area inside my head where blood flows and light has never been, but being able to process my encounters and what my eyes take in. I vastly prefer writing to crying or leaving experience on a shelf to molder and decay like the turtle in my high school biology classroom.

I miss that classroom with the south facing windows. It was, in fact, the only room in the school where I felt completely comfortable. My classmates may have addled me at times, but the overall feel was one of calm. It was the warmth of the sun and the instructor that did it. He was young, married (much to my chagrin) with children, and devastatingly hot in every way. He dressed quirkily, preferring green Docs and jeans to loafers and khakis. He wore nerdy glasses and listened to rock and was proud in his youth.

I had traveled with him to France; he had comforted me through pain and lent me a CD to fall asleep to. The Sundays static& silence was my soundtrack for those two weeks when I feared that my life was about to change permanently, not knowing that such an event wouldn�t come to pass for another five months. He refused to leave me in the sullen silence he had experienced as my pain, not knowing that when we returned to our hotel for the night I would sob into my pillow out of his earshot and sight.

I helped him move in the beginning of my senior year. He had finally taken the plunge and bought a home, preferring to reside in the boondocks than behind the Fresh Pasta Shop where traffic came in and out all day. Liz collapsed in a fit of giggles and blushing when she happened to pick up a box from the bedroom, condoms thrown in at the last minute were the focal point. She refused to carry it, telling me I had to do it even though I tried to rationalize with her.

�He has kids, you know. You think that teachers don�t fuck?�

I got extra credit. He had made the offer to everyone in his AP Bio. class, but I was the only one to bother showing up. I had an affection for him that went so much deeper than simply the lust of a virgin high schooler�s crush. He was a friend and a good one at that. I admired him for all that he was and what he was willing to risk in order to make a connection with his students.

This was before his life fell apart.

She accused him of sexual harassment and our class fell behind. A sophomore whose sister had perpetrated a similar act upon a popular athlete in our own sophomore year, she had to have the spotlight. While older sister had cried rape and lost in court, younger took it all the way to the school board before recanting. The stain would forever permeate his record and make his relationship with the incoming principal tenuous, eventually driving him to flee both school and island. It was never him you had to fear, it was the Cornell graduate English teacher who also coached tennis. He had been known, in after school meetings with female students, to tell them they had �breasts like a goddess�.

Our class fell behind, did poorly on the AP test. We had incompetent substitutes who knew nothing of biology. When he returned, things screamed discomfort. He wouldn�t touch us, wouldn�t play, too afraid of who would tattle next. He tried to make up for it with charisma, and it worked in sort of a half way, but the connection was frayed and hurt oozed at the disconnect. He would slip into his old self and then pull back explaining that so much a readjusting a girl�s necklace clasp was inappropriate.

Our last day of class before exams, he read us The Lorax and it nearly brought me to tears. It would be one of the last times I saw him and in some way I knew it. I visited him once in the spring of my freshman year of college. He was the only one of my former teachers to tell me that, if I hated it as much as I was saying, I should drop out and with talent like mine, I didn�t need to waste my time until I was ready.

I�ve tried emailing him, but failed. I imagine he�s abandoned the yahoo address (as so many do) due to so much spam.

He was the only teacher who gave a damn. He was the only one who allowed himself to love us. He was the only one to get screwed in the end.