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Not a single student escapes
the lash of a pen .
A clean sheet of paper is dirtied
with the red of a checkmark
screaming, "You are never good enough."
Chipped blackboards
hold the words long lost,
erased and forgotten,
of students long gone.
Forced into sifting through English's composition
and science's inner most secrets,
we dissect algebra on a surgical table.
Yet learn nothing except how to navigate an ocean
of a hallway.
Drowning in a sea of anxiety,
ankles chained to textbooks, tests, and teachers,
as you inhale water tainted by the spines of old books
and sweaty teenagers.
But I clutch to ripcords of belief,
I'm not a chameleon to the brick wall.
I'm hanging to fistfuls of poetry
like loose change in my pockets,
till my head rises above the waves
and the tide releases me to graduation.