Through restless pupils,
I struggle for success
I bend over backwards
To try and be something—
What is that word to me?
Is it the answer to feeding myself
If I end up without a bright future?

I used to wonder what struggle was
As though my teachers
Didn't define it clearly enough
My mom explains to me,
Be something—don't settle
For the basics like I did.
I wonder if she bruised her nose
Searching inside thick textbooks,
Questioning what it would teach her
And where her future
Would be in twenty years
Did any teacher show her
How to pay her taxes
Or write cursive as beautiful
As she writes it today?

All I ever think about is
What topics I'll be forgetting next
And what grade I'll manage on the test
Maybe one day my children won't
Be forced by their teachers,
Who listen to a corrupted government,
To learn to hate the idea of learning.

The time is 5 a.m.,
Time for school,
I repeat.