"Where do you want to go?"

they ask,

but the words are monotonous and worn-out,

they are ragged against pearly-white teeth.

I tell them anyway, because it's what I want,

where I need to be.

"What do you want to do?"

and the question is in the same condition as the last,

worn ragged and ripped apart by repetition.

This time I tell them because it lights me up,

because without the ones who have done it before me, I wouldn't be here.

Teach.

And the word always seems to throw them for a loop,

whether they know me or not, it seems no one can imagine

a seventeen year-old girl wanting to be a teacher,

sitting in a classroom grading papers

for the rest of her life.

But that's not it, not at all.

Teaching is more than grading, more than standing

pin-straight

at the front of a classroom,

it's more than education.

It's passion.

It's the words that they'll read off the pages

(Shakespeare, Sandburg, Saldinger, etc.)

it's the sharing of trust and knowledge,

it's the touch of their lives to mine

and vice versa.

So when they ask why, I just kind of smile,

and give them an answer that's less ragged

and no less true--

"I want to do what's been done for me."