***I would suggest watching the video that I have uploaded rather than reading the actual poem. The poem itself has been transcribed for the sole purpose of an alternate, individualistic interpretation if one would rather that than mine. However you choose to experience it, enjoy.***

 

everyday I wake up

trudge to school in shoes that are borrowed

walk into a classroom

and listen to you talk to me about things that I don't really care about

and I won't use tomorrow

but i'll still be at school tomorrow

back here in the back of the class, hoping it passes fast

and your farewell gift will be a stack of papers to make sure I dont do anything tonight with the instructions “due tomorrow”

 

human sorrow manifested in adolescence

i'm confused at your lessons

are they intended to make sure you get the paycheck

are we dollar signs in desks, dull students devoid of futures that do wrong like that's a penchant

is that a pension

that would compell you to slow it down so we get it or engage a student body predisposed to not trust you, we're rash and reckless

just kids with no interest that have agression

 

but where's the relevance in your math lesson?

for kids that would rather feel loved once in a while than solve for x, or maybe know that you loved us so we would solve for x knowing that it was for the best because we trust you

instead we plagiarize because I don't know how to write a thesis

I regard teachers like I regard danger

because I have no reason not to, name five things about me that don't have to do with how I look or in what I wanna major

I don't listen to you cuz momma told me not to listen to strangers

 

all you do is demand of me

do you care about anything besides the lesson plan? because a man shoved me

said I looked at his girlfriend funny

I ran from him to a classroom in which I was told, “get yourself together, dont be late to my class again,” buddy

why should I care? it's not like anything you say is gonna help after our world of pretend ends and again i'm at home starin at the fan, wondering

where the next meal will come from for me

 

my best friend's car broke down and he realized that he didn't know

how to change a tire, so he hit my phone

and asked me to come, and i'm the bottom of my class in nearly every subject, he is the pinnacle

of 21^st century education and without me he wouldnt be getting home

he doesn't know how to fill out a job application or balance a checkbook or how to develop his social skills and get some friends or make ends

but they say he'll end up the most successful with his 4.0

 

I could talk for hours and hours on this

they say following your dreams is beautiful, well i've never slept between this homework and trying to maintain a sensational life in one night, and so it's

just gonna have to stay unrealized because understanding the subatomic levels of nature and factoring polynomials is more important than knowing how to set a goal, quick

only reprieve is an eve where i'm feeling so sick

they're okay with me studying malcolm x as long as I don't raise my own fist

 

so here I go again

in my last year

no more pretend after this, im gonna have to figure out how i'm gonna pay taxes or what the bracket is, its significance and how to get a job and how i'll last there, the fact of the matter is

i'll keep crossing my fingers that one day you'll hop out of your red sedan

look me in the eye and say “how are you doing, ezra?” and

really mean it, ask about my dad and actually know what im referencing when I say he's employed now, get to class

and try your best to engage us as we finish reading the rest of The Stand

i'll do my homework that night, cuz that might

be the first time a teacher has evaluated me higher than a lesson plan