The Education System

I am four walls
I am brick
I am stone
I am broke
I make broken
I am the "un fun" in unfunded

I'm not prison
but yet I am
I sentence 12 year death sentences
and have the nerve to let them live after
give them a comma to cliff hanger themselves over for college

I am zombie apocalypse
i am full of undead
full of the hungry
I am full off the hungry
their stomach echo through my halls
for more than a freebie
I am the starve in their creativity
I am less Mozart and DaVinci
more lets study for the SAT
I am not enough welcoming
and too much he just needs some Ritalin

i am circus
i make them juggle 3 essays a week
and balance textbooks on the backs
I put the trap in trapeze
I even hire lion tamers
to teach these kittens
a trick or two
I find them so silly for their sacrifice
when they get paid less and less
for their educated advice

I am ocean
but we can't afford arks here
can't talk about arks here
separation between church and estate
we take God out of homes here
put faith into tombs here
I make drowning happen
I make a baptism out of the bastards
I make swimming in assignments mandatory
I am drop-out or dive in
the only way to not swim with the fishes
is to go down a pipeline here


I am drain
I do drain
I dry
I separate

can't teach
I mean
wash the whites
with the coloreds right?

I am the asterisk next to brown vs. board of education
I am how the browns get bored of education
you know
that why ya daddy didn't graduate
he thought he'd be first generation too
I am neighborhood school eviction notices
but good luck trying to afford
charter school uniform
or a catholic school prayer
I am locs are for your mouth
not for you hair
I am 30 year old whitewashed black history books
I am your mother's only hope for your chance out of the hood
I am gentrification and separation in your education

but sometimes
I am scared
sometimes
the children
learn the system

and little by little they realize
I am really only what they are

I am back of the class daydreams
I am doodles on desks
I am apprehensive raised hands
and fuck this test
I am right handed left brains
and that not how the hell you say my name
I am movers and shakers
and rule breakers
I am sleepy heads down
but woke fists up
i am "my mama told me to tell you!"
I am thinkers
and tinkers
and speakers
and dreamers
sometimes
I am not just the education system
I am just the tool of student
used at whim of their own wisdom
I am a measly gust of wind
to their forest fire spirits
sometimes
I am the one that gets schooled.
please don't tell them
i am nothing without them.