Here in America, number who knows what in education,
Where we excel in standardization,
Of souls and resumes
Where you need a 4.5 gpa
And hey, I know I’m one of the ones in the 1%
I’ll repent for my hypocrisy in saying “break free”
I know, poor me, being reduced to numbers just isn’t my thing
4.33, schedule block B, math, PE and chemistry
Sometimes it’s hard to breathe
I can feel my chest cave and shrink
That chewing glass feeling
And imagine the kids sitting on the brink of failure
Which has grown to become something:
A cacophony of the anti American dream
And therefore we’re stripped of autonomy
In the land of the free
“I pledge Allegiance to”
The US public education system which finds its niche in the fact
That witchcraft seems to be the way to survive it
Deviation from the norm is only embraced for a profit
So basically unless you’re an actual prophet I’d color in the lines
It’s not like you could find the time
After the 7 hours of school, 3 for homework, 2 for sports, 7 for sleep, 2 for eating, and half a minute for breathing
So on Gregory, on Denise, to your 9 to 5s
Of course there’s those that thrive
Living their best life outside the American Assembly line, like in algebra there’s an exception to every rule
So I’ll run the rat race September to December to spring break to summer and then start it over
I’ll chew my glass, if you’ll fill one up with champagne for June of 2020, when the real world begins,
Because the world of high school and imaginary is where I live.

Maybe, maybe, maybe, if you say sorry enough they’ll believe it, know you mean it.
I think your heart could use that kind of break.
right now it’s breaking.
For some small comfort there’s the night, the silky smooth night, the moon and stars.
For the hopeless romantic and pragmatist- for we’re but a second in eternity, a speck in infinity
But what a privilege it is to be so.
And what a burden it is to be so.
To be so….what?
Because here, for the first time in a long time it’s not my poison.
It’s his and hers and theirs.
Regardless, I’ll drink to my place in forever and infinity, and in regards to how my throat burns holes in my heart as it goes down, I’ll make do as I’ve done before.
Down is where it mixes with the roots,
With the ashes from which this sort of deep pain burns in the embers of my own broken glass
That’s right, I’m filled to the brim with bottles of what used to be stale beer, scorched purple in the sun of some far off desert.
They’ve been lathered in hope, rinsed with cynicism, dried with the same snot ridden shirt sleeve that dried my tears.
From them, I’ll drink poison until their pain is gone and my wish washy smile resurfaces, blood in my teeth from a war not mine.
When the straight laced meets the twisted, who bends and which way?
For better or worse, or shall I stay here in the numb, sweet and cool embrace of neutrality?
No, because I seek warmth.
It gets more than warm, hot enough to bend steely figures into what seems human.
Don’t touch. Too hot.
Proximity is a dangerous game here, where you risk skin and bone bubbling, dripping into the fire.
Burns leave scars, did you know that?
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.
Contradicting, questioning, quizzically,
I’m making my way through this like a blind man through a labyrinth of the social species.
Say maybe, so you don’t land in concrete, before you freeze from waist down and can’t breathe.
Say maybe, so time moves quickly; or stay here and bear their moment, heart and soul rough and bare.
Say maybe, so you don’t have to be sure you’re forgiven.
Say maybe, keep on holding their sins so the weight can pull you away from your own.