Water trickles steady in the stream
Wearing through the rock of the year a
skinny, sickly canal;
Day after day
River runs steady;
Day after day passes by like old leaves
floating on the water,
like faces bloating in the creek
I am smart, they tell me
I am academic, they tell me
They feed me paper cards like dog treats
One after the other, every forty-five days:
four-point-five,
four-point-three,
four point
five-
six-
two,
A, A plus, A minus,
A,
A,
A,
--like water running steady, wearing smooth
the roughness of my vigor;
soon I will be Polished,
Ready.
My father sees me ambitionless, picking at
the skin hanging off my nails;
My mother sees me already as what I am,
more the gray curling husk of a crisp autumn leaf;
My sister sees me truly--she is young, she has been me, she is still me.
When I graduate,
when I leave this place,
because my days will not end, floating down the tunneling stream like dampened flower heads bobbing in the water,
I will graduate:
In two years' time, I will walk down the stage
In two years' time, I will go again to school
In two years' time, I will join the river a bobbing floating leaf among the thousand bobbing floating leaves
In two years' time, I think I will **** myself
When I graduate, I think I will **** myself