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Robert Ronnow Mar 2022
Should I become a middle school math or English teacher?
Leave my bed early in the morning and return with test papers to grade.
With what authority will I persuade those kids to sit still and perform
      calculations and interpretations.
I won’t be allowed to teach A Good Man Is Hard To Find. Nope, it’ll be
      Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies and Slaughterhouse Five. Novels
      that annoy.
Poems and math are magic. Words and numbers are things no one has
      ever seen or heard or touched.
But the administration keeps them separate. The curriculum’s
      determinate.
The kids are beautiful but combustible. When middle school lets out at
      the periapsis of Earth’s orbit, that’s the face of joy.

The purpose of school is to introduce us to the world’s innumerable
      wonders. The periodic table, World Wars I and II, Huckleberry Finn
      and Jim.
Once a gaggle of teenage girls bet whether I wore boxers or jockeys. I felt
      ambushed and unlucky. Also a bit afraid.
There’s little love lost between the students and the teachers. Expect to
      forget and be forgotten. Information.
I remember Mr. Killian my chemistry teacher. So boring about something
      I now find so interesting and important. He wasn’t boring; I was
      boring.
I remember Mr. Christensen my history teacher. He was fat and funny but
      taught as little as possible. I was known to laugh so hard I cried.
I remember Mr. T my calculus teacher. He dressed everyday exactly like
      Gene Kranz in mission control. I was confused past help so he didn’t
      help.
I remember Tone Kwas my music teacher. He said I was the worst
      trumpet player he’d ever tried to teach and switched me to
      sousaphone. He was right but so what! Playing badly is the best
      riposte.
Valya Mar 2022
I'm staring at the clock
Waiting for the 9 to become a 0
Checking how much longer
Until I'm out
I sit here in silence
Typing away
The only sound being
My fingertips on the keyboard
I look again, the 0 is there
But now I long for it to be a 1
A never ending, vicious cycle
Minutes away from a freedom
That can only be achieved
After 7 hours in this hell
When the day comes
That I no longer stare
At this digital *******
And instead enjoy what is around me
I will finally be at peace
Safana Jan 2022
The children are not safe
If their lives are not secure
Their schools their homes
And their homes their lives

Let's say:
"No children's kidnapping"
Justice for "Hanifa Abubakar"
Maitsholo Jan 2022
I thought of it as a place of books and pens only
A place of learning and teaching
But it was something else

It was a place of creating memories
Capturing moments
Making a movie out of it
With all the teenage drama and fantasy

It was a camp site for some
Always ready to go on an adventure
It was a place of retreat for others
Because it had a feeling of home

It is a place to forever be remembered
Am gonna miss high school. I never thought that the days of high school will  will come to an end
koketso Dec 2021
To the middle school English teachers
that simplified Shakespearean plays to the last syllable, feeling like the same dagger of odd epiphanies.

The distinct powdery paint stained floors, acrylic smudged tables and the coffee aroma by 09:03.
An art class educated by a poetic tongue, flicking through all art movements like he existed eloquently in each.

Our engineering & graphics teacher who simultaneously mothered us as her own from the isolated section of block D. In the background, a blackboard with  meticulously drawn site plans of the highest precision. Her shouts were just as sharp.

To my spontaneous IT teachers that taught me how to maneuver through binary dilemmas and store any distress in random access memory.

Or to the person who found my wallet with my ID and bank cards but had no idea where my cash disappeared to.

The aloof B15 bus driver constantly arriving before the last bell, especially on rainy pastel gray days.

The far too kind Mrs Sharon. I've never met you personally. However, your positive impact on my grandparent's life rolled both from their tongues and into my life.

Thank you.
Dave Robertson Dec 2021
Having dispatched the sound rabble
with mostly love,
our already flaccid balloon
deflates with a final raspberry

a fitting fanfare to a term
that left its markers marked,

the shared mirth,
across eyes and hearts,
at a **** noise
proving once again:
we are why we’re here
Ellis Dec 2021
Broke as hell
Blue light eyes
Pity be pity see
Pushing till they pull
Color coded notes on fire
Scholar of all that is okayish
Handicapped lockjaw zombie
Swimmers in the styrian river of Dante’s Inferno
A stop sign growing in the middle of the street
Thousand yard letter grade stare
12 missed assignments
Experienced Naivete
Dementia in progress
Last year’s Amnesia
Crossing busy streets
Vegetative
Lalaouna Amina Dec 2021
to spell incorrectly:
utterances, circumstances,
suggestions, assumptions,
routine...
But the terror:
to state Button as Bottom!
answering questions
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