A masterpiece was promised,

A carving out of words,

To stand, eloquent, elegant

Child of talent, effort, ripped-up sheets,

The first of many,

Essay-sculpture,

And I, Author-carver.

But you brushed aside my eager chisel,

My mind of words and tales and hopes,

You set me to so many tasks,

An eternity of nights the same,

The result shrouded by authority’s promise

Of better.

All was careful-measured,

Angles all exact,

Phrases just how you commanded,

Structures built for A’s.

Until there,

My masterpiece…

A coffin of wooden thought

And rigid style,

As tall as me and skeleton-wide,

A formula,

Laid out bare,

Waiting for a sacrifice,

Leaving me with dead rhythm, stiff rhyme,

Phrasing that never felt like mine.

 

For “This will pay,” you promise and goad,

As I struggle with impossible load,

“With perfect grades where’er you go,

SAT, ACT,” and other letters I do not know.

“But first, the one to lie within,”

You command with a grin.

“She suffocated beneath the weight

Of busywork, and pointless nights too late."

And heavy heart, I laid her there,

Creative Spark, Writer’s Flare.

Shut the lid and drove the nail,

And hid behind a Three-Point veil.

For in the mirror I now could see,

What this class had done to me.

I buried her ‘neath scripted papers,

Cut off from all original capers,

Covered with stress, six feet down,

Leaving behind a world pure brown.