Endless darkness envelops the young girls classroom She sobs silently awaiting her nightly lesson His shadow looms with her in his toxic embrace Her heart stops So does time and space Suspended and vulnerable- she is schooled He forces down her cries of wrong answers with manipulative lips And whispers his answers in her young ears As if she can understand him He doesn't care as his hands begin to creep She tenses Knowing whats to come A routine pop quiz Her instincts scream at her to simply skip It wasn't mandatory, she could walk away She doesn't She knows what must be done His hands still creep A whimper breaks from its cage So does a glimpse of his rage A pain in her side Reminds her not to say a peep Or pass the notes summarizing his lessons His destination reached As if bleached Her color slowly fades Her essence Once a plethora of iridescent lights Now chained to his chalk stained hands Are as black as an eclipsed sun Knowing nothing else but his lessons She obediently lays She tries to clear her mind Focus on her answers Tries to leave whats left of herself behind Distractions weren't acceptable Wanting simply nothing more Then for her life to be like it was before Before pop quizes And true or false test Before projects displaying your talents The talents teacher spent weekends making sure she knew like the back of her small hands But teacher needs her focused Though her cries are no longer caged They go unnoticed Why would teacher care to notice? He was teaching! She trembles with the pain All the hatred and disdain Emotions cloud her head The questions began to run together Adding to her dread of another lessons end She prays that soon it will be over But not everthing has been covered And teacher is always sure to be thorough The young girl is panicked Once again she can't keep up She is lost As a result, her work suffers While teacher grades her work His rage is unleashed All her answers are still wrong! Class was over But detention was waiting