Once a girl with curly brown hair

showed her mom her very first poem

she tapped her head and told her it was great

and hung it on the fridge for all to see

That same girl 10 years later

17 and in her senior year

comes home every day and hides her work

because her teacher told her it was only average

her teacher gives her 20 pages of homework almost every night

never giving her the chance to take a minute to write

she does math, science, history and english

and in her head condemns them all to hell

she can't do all this every night

and they wonder why stress is a problem at her young age

the girl with the curly brown hair can't do what she loves

because shes too busy filling her head with useless facts

and never having time to do anything she likes

sometimes she bangs her head and questions the meaning

of her life

and she locks her door and writes a poem

about how she cant wait to leave and focus on her

but for now she ignores the gun in her nightstand drawer

and hangs the poem on her door

never showing her mom

because to her she is still the girl with the curly brown hair