the love manual

most of what i know now
has nothing to do with school.
teachers,
classrooms.
in fact most of what i learned
there,
i rarely use.
what's of value came later,
came today,
or yesterday.
looking into people's eyes.
finding out who they
are, what they're made of.
no one teaches you about the heart.
about love.
about pain and sorrow.
there's no manual
for any of that. you learn
that on the run,
on the street.
the teachers are too busy
with math
and English, history for
god's sake.
the pain you felt the first
time your heart was broken,
is no different than
the last time,
how do you even begin
to teach a child something
like that?