entry forty-six

 Friday, May 23, 2025

Today, I found out that a parent from last year posted a scathing Google review about me—angry, public, and built on a lie. She repeated an old accusation, long ago addressed and disproven: that I pulled her son’s arm to get his attention. I remember the moment vividly—not because I did what she claimed, but because I didn’t. Two other adults were present. Twenty students in the room. Not one person saw what she insists happened. I never touched that child in the way she described. Yet, there it is—searchable, permanent, and damaging.

I’m ashamed to even write this. I’ve built my entire career on trust, on empathy, on creating safe spaces for students. To see that work reduced to a sentence in a public review—so casually cruel—makes me feel stripped of everything I’ve poured into this job. What haunts me isn’t just the falsehood. It’s the helplessness. It’s knowing I have no control over what strangers now believe about me. I wonder what parents will think when they search my name. I wonder if my administrators will wonder. I wonder if the profession I’ve given everything to will protect me, or if I’ll be left to fend for myself.

The accusation alone is painful. But it’s the silence afterward that cuts deepest. No one came into my classroom today to ask if I was okay. No administrator pulled me aside to check in. I taught math and reading. I wiped noses and tied some shoelaces. I de-escalated behavior, sang songs, and stapled art projects to a bulletin board—as if my name hadn’t just been dragged through digital mud for anyone to see. The show must go on, I guess. In this profession, it always does. Reality check - I am not a show; I am a person. I am a teacher who has stayed up past midnight working on IEP paperwork. I am a teacher who has bought birthday cupcakes for a child without birthday treats and classroom supplies out of pocket. I am a teacher who has cried over students’ pain and stayed up late rewriting lesson plans to meet needs no one else seemed to notice. I am tired. Not just physically—but soul-tired, from the weight of being expected to carry it all without faltering, even when it hurts this much.

    My administrators say they’re trying to have the post removed, and for that I’m thankful. Several of my colleagues have reached out—some texts, a few calls. Their support means more than they know. It’s a lifeline in a moment that feels incredibly isolating. Still, even with their kindness, the damage lingers. I feel stained by something I didn’t do. I feel like my name doesn’t belong to me anymore. That it’s been rewritten by someone else’s anger—and I don’t get to erase it.

    I know who I am. I know the integrity I teach with. But today, that doesn’t feel like enough. I wish—deep in my bones—that someone with authority would look me in the eyes and say, “I believe you. I see what you carry and I won’t let you carry it alone.”

Replaceable

Just like that—
a lie blooms on a screen.
Conjured from thin air,

like smoke with no fire beneath it.

There was no story to bend,

no moment to misinterpret.

It simply never happened.

Nothing to confuse,

no gray area,

no misunderstanding—

just a lie.

Now I’m left

dodging shadows of something

that never existed,

defending myself

against a ghost.

It’s not just unfair—

it’s surreal.

Like being accused of setting a fire

in a room that was never even warm.

She wants me gone.
Fired.
Forgotten.
And suddenly, all I’ve built—
years of love,
calm voices in chaos,
hands that never harmed,
a heart that has only ever held—
feels like it can be swept away
with one click.

Do they know how easily
a teacher can be shattered?
How fast our name
can become a weapon?

I have given my everything.
Late nights.
Tears held in until the parking lot.
Smiles forced through burnout.
Hope, stitched back together
morning after morning.

But one lie,
and I’m not a person—
I’m a headline.
A whisper.
A problem to erase.

I am tired of being disposable.
Of carrying grace
when no one carries me.

I am not what she says.
I am not her anger.
I am not that lie.

I have given my breath,

my heart,

my years—

and all it took

was one lie

to make me feel

like I could vanish.

God, it hurts
to stand in a world
where truth weighs less than outrage,
and a teacher’s worth
can be deleted
without a second thought.

“From Breath I Rise”

mixed media on wood

me: You were supposed to help me make sense of the chaos. Instead, I look at you and feel... cornered. Exposed. Did I paint my own demise?

From Breath I Rise: No. You painted the truth. The part no one asks about. The battlefield behind the bulletin boards.

me: Why do I feel ashamed for needing to say it? I’m supposed to be the calm in the storm. Not the person falling apart inside it.

From Breath I Rise: They taught you that survival must be silent. That composure means credibility. I remember your hand trembling as you drew those first lines — Trying to catch your breath while the world kept piling on.

me: Three days covering for my co-teacher. IEPs multiplying like shadows. And then that review—That lie, so smooth it slithered past the truth. It didn’t just accuse me of something I didn’t do. It stripped me of something I can’t get back.

From Breath I Rise: Your name.

me: Yes. My name. My reputation. My record. What I build every day. One line, one child, one crisis at a time. Now it’s smeared by someone’s bitterness. How do you paint yourself whole again after that?

From Breath I Rise: Not by erasing. You already knew that — You layered me with breath. Not just as meditation. As refusal. To vanish. To let the lie be the only thing that speaks.

me: It feels permanent. The silence that followed was the worst part. No one came. No one asked, “Are you okay?” I taught with that lie circling like a hawk above me. Still—I tied shoelaces. I sang morning songs. Like I wasn’t bleeding.

From Breath I Rise: That’s why I exist. To show what it costs to keep performing when the wound is still open. The soldiers—those green, plastic symbols of attack — they are not just attacks. They are the lie. The isolation. The pressure to smile while your body is on fire.

me: I put myself in the middle. I don’t know if that was bravery or masochism.

From Breath I Rise: It was truth. You are always in the middle. Of crises. Of conflict. Of systems that don't protect you. Here—inside me—your center is held. Not erased. Not replaced. Held.

me: I wanted someone to say, “I believe you.” No one did.

From Breath I Rise: Let me be the one. I was made from your breath. Your pain carved me, but your persistence colored me. I am not neutral. I am not impartial. I am yours. I believe you.

me: That’s not enough, but it’s something.

From Breath I Rise: It’s not everything. It’s where we begin. From breath. From rupture. From the refusal to disappear quietly.

me: Stay with me until I can face the next lie and I remember I still matter.

From Breath I Rise: I never left. I am your breath and I will stay.