You know what I'm going to miss most...
Are those short chats in Afrikaans class
That share sly secrets and hearts are opened freely
No pretence and no doubt in mind
And I come to realise
It is my last year to do so

It's the sound of the bell
That leads me along each day
That structure every day of my life
Calling me to its whims
To the places I should go
Next year I will be alone.

It's those short walks to each class
Where you get in those last bits of a conversation
You utter words of encouragement to those who are in need
To your fellow girls in green
And for the first time, I wonder if I'll ever see them again...

I've been surrounded by these radiant faces
Each day of my life
For the past five years,
Some twelve
I've walked these corridors with them
I've heard about pieces of their extraordinary lives
We've shared laughs as a class
And inside jokes...
That time when someone was given something in art that made her insane and declare "the tree bit me", again and again
The hazy day in grade eight when we were so delighted by our teachers absence, we caused such a raucous and when she came... That class captain shouted "SHE'S COMING!"
And all was back to normality...
I remember my first cultural day...
Singing to the entire school at the top of my lungs...

I remember my first day of grade 8,
A mousy timid being not sure of where she should go
To a phoenix screaming her name on the stage...
Ready to fly into the skies
And stare down at meak faces
And eyes filled with fascination

You see,
There are things in my school I love dearly
The radiant faces beside me each day, the ones that have always stayed and never strayed away...
The sound of the bell as it structures my day
And those conversations in Afrikaans class...
That keep me sane...
I ponder of what my life will become
And if I will always hold these memories
So close to my whimpering heart...