Ms K’s studio arts class

(Speaking to mum in her bedroom, if you’re listening, I’m speaking to you, g, still hoping you get to know me, somehow, understand)

G, the first thing you’d notice as you approached the studio arts class

Was a girl of incredible beauty, you’d agree, g, the girl from ipanema

If you could look away, you’d notice the students lined up outside

Shrugging, quite used to repeating Ms K must be off smoking bongs

A beret would come, and beads, and if you’re like me, g, you’d notice

How proud of her hairy pits she was. So we’d all pile in, needing to sit down

After a long wait. I’d immediately take control of the tapedeck, trying to

Serenade the girl from ipanema, tho I don’t think she ever noticed I played

Brazilian love songs for her. Yet, once, I got the courage to ask if I could draw

Her portrait, and she said yes, and smiled, and I only got her nose.

I sat next to my school friend, A, and his friend, A1, and I’m not really sure

I noticed anything they said or did, apart from the girl, going round tables.

Once, we went to Smith Street, and Ms K left us all there for most of the day

And went somewhere with her male partner. I heard off A, she’d arranged

A trip to see vali myers for me, but I hadn’t gone. N was also in the class

But I never noticed him, he told me a few years later I had asked him

For a pencil, and I said, “Was that you? I thought you were a misogynistic

Indian man, you wouldn’t even look at me.” He said he thought I was

Abused, lesbian, or vegetarian. I always hotly contested that, why did everyone

Assume I was a vegetarian all the time? I always wore a leather jacket!

But the lesbian part, I had no idea. Ms K said one day, “Raelene, did you

Get those art supplies?” I said I had bought a brigit bardot video, she

Just looked me up and down and replied, “Whatever’s important to you.”

The culmination of the year was her great protest. She arranged a sit-in, in

The headmasters office, for all us students to protest them cutting funding

To the art classes. Sadly, she was the only one who turned up. She left after that

(So maybe, if you weren’t magically in mums bedroom, g, you’ll know a bit, now, about Ms K’s studio arts class)