Melissa Lemay

the school was built
we sat in classrooms
each day, rote

memorization
of facts and figures
but never learning

about interest rates
or mortgages,
real-world, real-life

things we would use
(not) taught to think
in dewey decimal

systematically
ingrained with fracture
and parliament

defined by etiquette
and social order

i took out my retainer
and placed it on
my lunch tray,

and threw it in the trash
i understood quickly
that a new retainer

cost $200 and was
told not to do that again
i did it once more

Melissa Lemay lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, with her children, cats, and dog. She writes about God, addiction, trauma, healing, motherhood, and many other things. She enjoys spending time with family, drinking good coffee, and being outdoors. She loves animals. Her poem, Ephemeral, was chosen as Poetic Publication of the Year for 2023 at Spillwords Press; she was Author of the Month for July 2024 and Author of the Year for 2024. Find her at melissalemay.wordpress.com, collaborature.blogspot.com, and at dVerse Poets Pub.

This poem, she writes me down, appeared in Record of Dissent: Poems of Protest in an Authoritarian Age — Summer 2025, published by The Chaos Section Poetry Project. We’ll be featuring each poem from the collection individually in the weeks ahead. You can read the full collection or download a free PDF of the chapbook here.