"extracurriculars" poems
for most of the scholars, the future is the stressor
SATs, ACTs, grades, extracurriculars, college apps, jobs
when given notice, anyone can prepare for and deal with a challenge
when one's worries consist only of the future, one is blessed, not cursed
when life is "how can I get through this" instead of "how will I get through that"
it's a problem.
best math student in the school, but he still can't solve the everyday problem
mom dad divorce boyfriend alcoholism violence lawsuits counseling
too many terms, it's unfactorable, it's unfair, this wasn't in the textbook now it's on the test and I can't get a 100
I thought being perfect was the only way?
Feb 10, 2015
Feb 10, 2015 at 11:35 PM UTC
I was never enlightened on what to do
When someone shattered my heart,
But it happened anyway.
He took it and crumpled it
Before he went and tore it all apart.
I wasn't taught that you shouldn't look back...
So I learned to cry.
I thought the best was to be bitter
Not to just up and forget it all.
I didn't know that you should smile
And move on with your life.
Make your own joy, because I was all I really had.
All the movies they hadn't done it right.
They didn't show me that you should act
Like nothing was ever wrong.
They didn't tell me that people change and move on.
That's why I didn't know how to respond
When he left me on the street
My hands pressed to my head, my feet chasing after him.
I was never told a person wasn't worth
The pain,
The tears,
The fight,
Simply because no one ever talked about this.
School didn't have a class that eased the heartbreak,
Didn't have any extracurriculars for the ones
Who looked so woebegone over someone
Who never gave a **** about them in the first place.
They never offered up a panacea
For the scholars who thought their life was ending
Because they were lamenting over a pseudo, a sham.
They had classes for foreign languages
And math
And history too.
But not a single class about what to do
About a heart so damaged the loved drained out from the bottom
And created an abyss so deep
Not even Floyd Collins would dare venture in.
So for everyone who's never experienced
A sadness so blue,
I will tell you about what to do.
When you are told not to love someone anymore
Go ahead, continue on
Just don't let him know.
Don't show any emotion when you pass him on the street
Or when you hear his name from across the room.
You can cry, that's acceptable,
But if you ever notice he's watching you
You go on and smile and act like you're having a **** good time.
And maybe you will eventually convince yourself you are.
Maybe not in the next day,
Or month,
Or even year,
But eventually he'll fade from your mind
Like the words written across the mirror with your finger
After a burning hot shower.
And if all else fails,
Just know to never go back
Because, darling, I know you're stronger that that.
Jun 4, 2014
Jun 4, 2014 at 7:42 PM UTC
What if alpacas are a hairy type of land fish?
If the moon is made of cheese does that mean space cows are really a thing?
Why do people say give things time when everything significant thing that happens does so in a moment?
What if the government assigned famous people before they were famous and that's why a lot aren't really talented?
Why do schools promote sleep and extracurriculars then give you so much homework you don't have time to do anything else?
Why does "I love you" not mean anything anymore?
Is it normal to ask so many questions?
Is normal even a thing?
Which religion is true and how do we know?
What if mentally ill people just see the world as it is and they're medication is just to keep a secret?
Who is actually reading all of this?
Why are we living if the world is just going to be engulfed by the sun's explosion or our own nuclear warfare?
Why do most girls sing breakup songs and most guys sing love songs?
Sep 19, 2017
Sep 19, 2017 at 11:59 AM UTC
Am I enough?
Well
It sure doesn’t seem like it
I grew up as the golden child
The gifted one
The multi-talented prodigy
Acting
Reading
Singing
Excellence across the board
I pushed and pressured myself to be the best
It was easy to be on top
I was enough
Insecurities started getting the best of me
A “B” was menacing
A “C” killed me
I was no longer the brightest
No longer the best
Comparison brought me down hard
My higher-than-average SAT score upset me
Why?
Someone else was better
I wasn’t the best
My anxiety got the best of me
I imagined my family’s disappointment
In my lack of straight A’s
In my lack of gifted-ness
“Try harder”
“Be better”
No one was telling me that
Except myself
Now
I feel more average than ever
The mediocrity suffocates me
No real extracurriculars
Only three classes
The self-loathing sets in
I don’t feel proud
The praise for straight A’s
In three
****
Classes
It feels like mockery to me
Though deep down
I know I have something to be proud of
I could have dropped out
When my body failed me
But I didn’t
I could have given up on life entirely
But I didn’t
Maybe I’m not the classic Gifted Child anymore
Maybe I don’t sweep the awards at the school ceremony
But that’s alright
I am enough
Even if I DID drop out
Even if I DID give up
I would still be enough
Because I was put here for a purpose
My family and friends won’t leave my side
Even if I failed every test this year
I am enough
Jun 5, 2018
Jun 5, 2018 at 8:07 PM UTC
Sacrifices
Painful, yet worthy.
Exist in every aspect of life.
As a child,
some fun if health doesn't permit.
As a teenager,
sacrificing extracurriculars to fulfill parents' expectations.
As an adult,
leaving passions to drown in a stressful job in order to lift responsibilities.
As a partner,
sacrificing one’s own wishes to prioritize partner's likes and dislikes.
As a parent,
keeping personal luxuries aside to uplift children happily.
Sacrifices—
even though seem tough to do,
give a sense of calm and content after seeing later results.
Jul 5, 2025
Jul 5, 2025 at 11:15 AM UTC
The tragedy in the irony
of No Child Left Behind
was never the inadequacy of the policy
but rather,
the assumption that it’s possible to have
no losers
in a finite game.
* * *
Each year, less than two and a half inches
of rainwater nourish Death Valley—
the hottest and driest place in North America.
* * *
We play this game all the way through.
“And what do you want to do with that [major]?”
they almost always ask,
with an unpretentious curiosity
that never quite pangs me the way I think it should.
Reassured by the familiarity of the ritual,
of asking and answering
this question
for most of my educated life.
* * *
The Valley,
marked by steady drought,
boasting record heat for days on end,
and devoid of visible life,
is remarkable in it’s
uniform emptiness.
* * *
“How are your grades?”
“What are your extracurriculars?”
“Why do you want to go to a liberal arts college?”
They ask, and I answer.
Across the hall they might ask
“Wouldn’t it make your family proud if you went to college?”
(Like expectations,
some rungs must sit lower
on finite ladders)
But the question is always the same—
it’s always a question of ends.
* * *
In the Winter of 2005
three times the normal amount of rain
wet the dry floor of Death Valley,
seeping into the scorched, thirsty cracks,
parched from praying all summer.
* * *
These ends surface
again and again
in our language.
Yet to escape the international contest
since A Nation at Risk,
investments and ends at every level
are (naturally) presumed economic.
* * *
That Spring saw the coaxing of waxy seeds,
after decades of unbroken slumber,
realized into a singular, infinite bloom.
The sleepy desert lupine
and hearty, golden poppies
felt sunlight
for the first time in 50 years.
* * *
The second tragedy,
greater than the first,
is the alienation of millions of
young beings.
The slow death
wrought by living a bounded life
of the caterpillar
never set to feel the sky.
The passions we mask and confuse
and cement ever more deeply,
hardened, at every step
by the conformity in our
expectations.
The means to which we grasp at
these apparent ends.
* * *
A sudden rush of caterpillars
fed by blue, purple and yellow blossoms
grew until they saw from above,
the spontaneous gathering
of birds, rodents, foxes, and snakes,
renewed again to life
by the tender hands of rain.
* * *
In a world where we stop asking
engineers
to build plants,
I imagine the organic
explosion
of latent seeds
everywhere.
Nov 1, 2016
Nov 1, 2016 at 3:12 PM UTC
When you’re a little kid, the first question you’re asked is always “What do you want to be when you grow up”.
Almost as if we have a choice.
We’re told to follow our dreams.
We’re told the world is our oyster.
We’re told that everything will be okay.
Lies.
Our life is already planned out for us.
Step One: Get good grades.
Ignore the anxiety howling at your door like a tornado.
Get over the flooding depression, drowning you slowly.
Ignore the large burdens slowly breaking your back, as admitting weakness won’t get you any sympathy.
Spend your hours studying each subject for your standardized testing, getting exercise, going and doing extracurriculars, volunteering, working a minimum wage job, cutting out time for the friends you didn’t have time to make, and don’t forget the homework.
Do all this and perhaps you might pass your classes.
Perhaps you’ll make honor roll.
Perhaps you’ll get into college or university.
Perhaps people won’t think you’re a failure.
Perhaps.
Step Two: Get a stable job.
Step Three: Get married.
Step Four: Have kids.
Because that’s the only reason you’re here, right?
To leave something worthwhile behind?
But there’s only one way to do it correctly.
You spend the first two years dedicating all of your time to this squirming thing, waking up at 3:00 AM to appease it’s crying, but you don’t care because you think it’s the one thing in the world you’ll love unconditionally and you know it loves you back but you aren’t thinking about that when you’re overtired and it’s bawling and you can’t do anything and you just want a few minutes to think.
It will get better from here, right?
The next ten years are spent driving from house to house, soccer field to soccer field, recital to recital trying to fit it all in.
Never really looking.
Never really seeing.
Step Five: Retire.
Step Six: Die.
Apr 24, 2018
Apr 24, 2018 at 9:14 AM UTC
"Kids just don't have any respect for their betters these days..."
Well
When you decide to come home from work
To see your kids seated in the same spot they have been in since they got home from school
Laboring over homework that really never ends
A chores list laying forgotten on the counter in front of their eyes glued not to their phones
But to the massive pile of work that even you couldn't hope to accomplish
And instead of encouraging them to finish their work
Shout at them for not taking your needs into consideration,
Remember that every period of every school day (That's 6 periods, 5 days a week)
Every single one of their teachers is telling them the same thing
To forget the other work and prioritize theirs.
Recall that even before their homework that they have extracurriculars
And colleges are looking for not just academic excellence but social too.
Remind yourself that on top of THAT, they are constantly under pressure from themselves as well
No one puts themselves through hell without mental conviction
And certainly no lazy student would ever take initiative unless it was extremely important.
Your chores pale in comparison to the ocean of stress floating in the minds
Of the very people you berate.
And bear in mind that you are not their betters
For respect is a privilege to earn,
Not a right to have.
Jun 5, 2017
Jun 5, 2017 at 8:19 PM UTC
I hate college
I hate my classmates
I hate my classes
I hate my extracurriculars
I hate my teachers
Why am I still here?
Because society tells me as a black female from a poor family im lucky to be here
The thing is though
I don't feel lucky
I feel trapped
Sep 23, 2019
Sep 23, 2019 at 1:31 AM UTC
when will you release my heart?
you clench it, squeeze it,
tear it in two different directions.
i can't tell whether you're
caring for or breaking it.
when will you be kind?
you used to take me by the arm
and throw me across the room
and now the only thing that takes a beating
is my mind. i wish the scars you left
were still physical ones.
when will you be steadfast?
it seems like in a matter of seconds,
you've gone from screaming at me
to treating me like someone you do love.
i just wish you weren't a rollercoaster.
when will you tell the truth?
you say you love me, that you care,
that you do everything for me,
but you call me a **** immature. a failure.
cowardly. weak. invalid. a waste of
time, money, space.
when will you love me?
you say you do. you feed and clothe me.
you pay for school and extracurriculars.
is that love? is you
doing what you're expected to do
as my mother
love?
you ask if i will be happy somewhere else.
you ask why i am so reserved in your house.
you ask why i don't like to talk to you.
i can't respond because i know
the answer i would give
would make you
feel like a
bad
mother.
May 26, 2018
May 26, 2018 at 3:04 PM UTC