<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Remember the lumber of the teacher\u2019s words <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mark Pajak<\/strong> was born on the Wirral. He is a graduate of LJMU and also the Liverpool Playhouse Young Writer\u2019s Programme. His work has appeared in Askew, Myths of the Near Future, Smoke <\/em>and Spilt Mil<\/em>k Magazines, among others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Break Time Remember the lumber of the teacher\u2019s words buckling under the bell\u2019s smash. Remember us kids blocking at the door to get out a bundle of smells: the nose fuss of jumper wool, spicy graphite on pencil stained fingers, our little mouths bursting with hot chat. On the playground, remember the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7422"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7424,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7422\/revisions\/7424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nBreak Time<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nbuckling under the bell\u2019s smash. Remember
\nus kids blocking at the door to get out
\na bundle of smells: the nose fuss of jumper wool,
\nspicy graphite on pencil stained fingers,
\nour little mouths bursting with hot chat.
\nOn the playground, remember the cram splintering
\nin a twang of shins, arms ribboning and the cold
\nsnapping as though the air were chalk.
\nHurtling over the concrete, remember if you can
\ntugging at the body\u2019s bonds
\nfrom the cake of scalp down to the toe clasps,
\nevery pore and goose bump as Velcro to unhook
\nand, in that second split like an atom,
\nyour child\u2019s heart becoming
\nthe crack of a whip bound in a school uniform.
\nBut remember also the railings
\ndrawing in like ribs of a corset. All sprints fray.
\nAll bodies slow. Remember the bars\u2019 solid thrum
\nlike a kicked guitar under the rain of our hands.<\/p>\n