education: a ballad

by dear brutus

December 2, 2013

I can't shower in the mornings anymore

Because negative ions make my skin feel more like a chemistry problem

Than a blanket for my Self

Now I know what the rate of change is in meters per second per second when I graph my car's trajectory

Which does me a lot of good just before the collision

I understand migration trends

So I can increase my capacity for empathy

Assuming the evening news has grown me one

And I can list you all the coordinating conjunctions

So your sentence makes concrete sense;

That one you wrote before? Discordant and personal

Forshame

I can tell you the short term effects of the empty bottle I'm swinging

In Spanish, even, if I speak slowly

But I can't tell you why it leaves me feeling hollower than the Shell Method

Or why my skin feels like skin again between sips

And I can sure as hell recite to you the preamble of our constitution

But I can't explain why the kid down the hall thinks it tells me my love means less than his

The marks upon my page are not my marks upon this world

And you blame a broken system for writing me off as a lazy divisor of derivatives

I can find you sixteen metaphors for pain; but that's not the kid you're looking for

Reduce, reuse, regurgitate

Bubble, sign, repeat

No sleep

No help

No semblance of a person

With a plan

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Comments (1)

jwienerJan 22, 2014

<p>With just this poem you voice the concerns of students in school- the supposed importance of learning certain concepts to do well in school v.s. doing the things you love, for a greater purpose. Have you brought this poem to your school? I think if you submitted it to the school newspaper or literary magazine it would definitely have an impact on the teachers and you could make a big difference in your school just with the words of your poem.</p>