"grader" poems
A drawing of a superhero
Done by a fourth grader
Who’s father died in a fire.
He’s standing ten feet tall
With the wind blowing in his hair,
He’s got so many friends
And feels no despair.
All the happy people
They say they love him
And there’s nothing he can do
But just keep going.
But teacher asks a question
And he doesn’t know,
So all the children laugh
At the broken Superhero
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 12:20 PM UTC
Make a mountain of math homework
seem merely a molehill.
Lay down the laws
of long division.
Teach yoga when we yawned,
sing loud when we slept.
Become a fellow fourth grader;
be the class clown.
Tie severed friendships
broken on the playground;
add new knots.
Be the judge,
but appoint us as jury.
Ease my fears
as the sky grew dark.
Let us listen to the radio
as New York burned.
Dare us to dig deeper, illuminate
our minds. Respect
our voices, accept our flaws.
And above all else,
let us teach her.
-With apologies to Elizabeth Homes
Nov 13, 2012
Nov 13, 2012 at 1:59 AM UTC
Five years ago
I knew an 8th grader
who felt ashamed for who he was
who felt constantly out of place
who tossed and turned at night
with deep enough despairs
with ideas of throwing it all away
with plans for those actions
with no dreams, and only one long nightmare
Three years ago
I knew a sophomore
who finally just started to accept it
who reached out and tried
who thought everyone felt the same
with only blank stares for replies
with only confused "friends"
with no family backing
with no true "inner circle"
Last year
I knew a senior
who carried the burden alone
who perfected his mask
who finally learned how to hide
with perceived success
with sarcasm and quick jokes
with pushing everyone away
with justified fear of opening up
This year
I know a college freshmen
who is struggling for acceptance of himself
who brags of the physical scars
who is afraid to reveal the deeper ones
with walls as big as he could muster
with iron bars to conceal what is beneath
with pandora's box within
with that same scared kid locked inside.
Apr 13, 2014
Apr 13, 2014 at 12:31 AM UTC
“Grades are getting low,
the teens are getting high.
That 12 year old is pregnant
and her parents wonder why.
A 1st grader is swearing,
a 3rd grader has been *****
Just take a look around you,
isn’t the system great?
Who isn’t faded these days,
teens are sending nudes,
kids are getting beaten,
the teachers see the bruises.
No calls for help are spoken,
teens are smoking ****
young girls are cutting,
this isn’t what we need.
The marks of taunt and yelling,
parents are divorced.
That 14 year old is drinking beer,
this can’t get any worse.
A little girl has killed herself,
nobody seems to care.
Another kid has been expelled
for a stupid dare.
But it needs to change.
Our world is officially broken.
It’s time to take a stand;
your thoughts need to be spoken.”
Thoughts are running wild
As the tears stream down my face.
Depressed and suicidal,
But I should just stay in my place.
I’m feeling kinda broken,
Feeling kinda lost.
I wanna make my pain
Just go away at any cost.
Don’t get me wrong, I grew up
In a nice enough neighborhood.
And I did everything that
Anybody said I should.
But it wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t me.
I thought that I could help the world
With the things I’ve seen.
My cousin lost herself
In drinking hard and smoking ***
My good friend tried to run away
And lose her past a lot.
I, myself, have struggled
With thoughts of losing it all.
The pro and cons of jumping off
That cliff into the free fall.
I mean if there's something that can save me
Then it'll show up, right?
It's worth the wait to take a blade to my wrist
And **** it up, right?
The truth is, I don't know
How to do this and win the fight.
I need someone to show me
There's still a ray of light.
I fell into a pit of despair
And it consumed me.
I guess the only way to help the world
Was to lose me.
Finding myself is gonna take a while.
Don't know if I can make it.
Keep giving out my heart
Hoping someone will take it.
Drinking, smoking,
Doing everything to make me numb.
Doing stupid things.
Making people call me dumb.
Popping pills like candy
Just to get me through the day.
Trying to end it all;
To make the pain just go away.
It wasn't perfect. Never.
It wasn't good enough for anyone.
So I always sat alone
And wished my life was done.
~Ashton Grayson Everly
Feb 13, 2018
Feb 13, 2018 at 1:27 PM UTC
She held her project aloft,
so assured of her supremacy
that she would challenge
God himself
were he an 8th grader.
Eyes averted,
I slyly slid my box
beneath the table-
absconding with my dignity
to aid in assailing some distant windmill...
Sep 25, 2012
Sep 25, 2012 at 12:02 AM UTC
There's a girl
Who's 13 years old
And doesn't know she's beautiful
And this girl
This fragile girl
Is scared of being alone
She's so scared
That she won't let us in
Because she doesn't want to hurt us
This lovely girl
She doesn't realize
That we think she's perfect
Perfectly imperfect
Perfectly human
Perfectly.. Perfect
When she pushes us
Though we will never go away
She sees herself in the same way we did (do?)
Unfixably broken
Completely unwanted
And left for dead on her own
And her porcelain skin
Is plastered with strawberry stains
And she moans on her own in the night
And every morning
The sun rises and the birds sing
And we patch her up and hope she'll be alright
Because we understand
We've had our turns on this ride
We're just hoping the ride ends early
She'll be weak
But we'll hold her hand
As she walks from the coaster
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 4:44 PM UTC
"No offense but you're like really fat."
this was said to me in second grade by another kid
to be fair, yes i was an obese little second grader but i had been growing about three inches every year since i had turned three
i don't believe this person was being inherently malicious
but i will never forget their words and the way they made me feel
Mar 24, 2021
Mar 24, 2021 at 2:02 AM UTC
It’s been a while…
It truly has been a while since I’ve written here, but yesterday I was triggered, inspired if you will; inspired to write this and let it be real.
When I was a child, 2nd grade to be exact, I befriended a girl on the school bus and long story short she spent my entire 2nd grade year manipulating me into all kinds of ****** acts not only with her but with other classmates. I was told by this girl, my classmate, another child, a second grader that everything we were doing was okay, it was all okay. Why?? Because her and her sisters did this kind of thing all the time.
To me as a child it made sense I guess, but she also threatened that if I ever told anyone as in ANYONE she would tell them it was all my fault all my idea. All of the staying in classrooms when no one was there, hiding and being told to do things that were beyond a child’s or even some adult’s comprehension, the hiding anywhere and everywhere and the fear of being caught it all was in my hands, and if i told I was to blame.
This went on for an entire year, or so who knows I blacked it out, but I vividly remember using a journal I got as gift to document it all detailed and when I got scared my mom would find it… I ripped the pages to shreds. And I killed the memory. I went my entire life until 19 years old that I realized it was never a dream.
It was real.
The point of this all is during a deep discussion With my best friend, I expressed to her the moment after all these years that remembered the girls name.
I told her one day my mom found a different journal I wrote in as a child, she found it a couple years ago and I was intrigued so I flipped to a random page… and on that page it was a prompt that asked my favorite and least favorite things about school.
My least favorite thing about school is: J****h .
There it was!!! Her name .
I told my best friend her name and seeing as though after I left the school district she stayed, we recalled the girl and how I can’t see her face in my mind but she knew she had a twin sister and they left the district after 2nd or 3rd grade and they came back in middle school. However by middle school I had transferred schools.
Long story short it shock my entire being that I missed this encountering this girl again . And I will never know her face or why she chose me but all I know is she was just the beginning of my trauma.
Nov 5, 2022
Nov 5, 2022 at 2:41 PM UTC
How did it start you might ask?
The story began when I was 16.
She knew just how to manipulate
me & so did Tim.
This was also the age I lost my
virginity to him.
Lured toward the lust I felt inside.
Which was why I had so much PRIDE.
She dated me & some other guy.
All along I was just her backup plan.
Keep in mind, I was a 10th grader in High School.
Going out to parties, smoking a bunch of cigarettes & ****
Nothing mattered. Which left me feeling more alone than I ever did.
Didn't get the privilege to walk down the aisle with the rest of my classmates.
Expelled.
How can God forgive a misfit such as me?
How undeserving I was. Rebellion.
Plenty of drugs & clubs - my personal
favorite was Pulse Night Club.
Who was I when I wasn't with women?
This was my life for 10 years.
Later on, I watched a spoken word video
called Jesus > Religion.
For a moment it clicked, or so I thought.
Evidently realizing I was a religious fraud.
Once upon a time, I was among the dead.
Now I am fully alive in Yeshua.
I may never forget, even if He already has.
As far as the East is from the West.
Relentlessly pursuing me in my brokenness.
He has made me whole & new again.
I urge you to pick-up your cross.
The battle has already been won.
Jun 14, 2018
Jun 14, 2018 at 3:14 AM UTC
I'm not good with words
they always come out wrong
but I'll write you a poem
because you keep me supported like my unswept floorboards
you have that wonderful smell of old ***** books
I want us to get together like cars merging into one lane of traffic
You're prettier than a third grader's sloppy cursive
You have a shine kinda like how people shine after sweating in the heat
you're more attractive than an icecream truck to suburban little kids
Your eyes are greener than lettuce
and your voice is more captivating than ****** pop music on the radio
Here's your poem
I told you I'm no good with words so yeah I'm not sure how to end this
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 1:45 AM UTC
They say I **** at writing,
They say I **** at grammar,
They say I made syntax errors,
They say I made orthographic errors...
They say you are not good enough to express yourself,
They say learn English, you first grader..
They say I am too bad at everything,
That means I am too bad even at expressing myself..
They say you are good for nothing...
Ah they are my real peers!
And with a different teaching style
Feb 16, 2015
Feb 16, 2015 at 11:51 PM UTC
When I was eight years old,
I overlooked a moment of compassion
And challenged the will of a fellow third grader
Compelled by my ignorance
She gave the most astute summary of my life ever uttered.
When I was eight years old,
A frizzy haired girl asked me an impudent question
A question of infinite importance:
How do you sleep?
How do you sleep at night, since you know yourself?
When I was eight years old, my arrogant mind brimmed with resentment
Reaffirming that I,
I, apart from my arrogance,
Was the best person I knew.
I was eight years old, and a prophet had spoken.
Eight years later,
I long to be swallowed by the sheets
Eyes stare mockingly at the dormant ceiling
Clinging to the handrails
As my train of thought
Careens off the tracks
Exploding in a cloud of terror and regret
Eight years later,
I long for the simple arrogance of my eight year old mind
I long to close my eyes
And remember nothing
Because today,
Today I am sixteen
And tomorrow I will be twenty-four
And the next day I shall be eighty
When I'm eighty,
I'll stare at the bleached walls
Succumbing to the force of the past
As it consumes the present.
When I turn eighty-eight,
I'll look to the end of my starched bed
And He shall smile
Saying, "Well done!"
I hope I lie, when I'm eighty-eight,
Because If I am honest
If I tell the truth
I do not know who he is
And I never have
I will be cast away
because, eighty years before,
When I was eight years old,
I was arrogant
But still innocent
eighty years from death
and eighty years from shame
I could have heeded those words
The words of the frizzy haired girl
When I was eight years old,
I could have decided
I could have had him sing me to sleep
I could have died entirely unlike myself.
Now that I'm sixteen,
I still do nothing.
Apr 17, 2013
Apr 17, 2013 at 12:14 PM UTC
I had a seventh grader tell me, when I was in 5th grade, that things go downhill after 5th grade - that life doesn’t get better, it just gets more complicated. I’ve had years to mull that over and I have to say that in some ways his testimony was on beat.
As we start the second half of sophomore fall semester, I think I’ve reached stability and I’m accustomed to this year’s schedule and workload. I haven’t surveyed whether I’m faster or slower in this (see below), but now I know all the tricks - where to eat, which paths to take and what to carry. I have a firm rhythm that’s consistent and insistent.
“I’m finally on my schedule.” I commented to Sunny yesterday morning as we collided in our dash to get our shoes on.
She looked at me in confusion “You know we’re on week 8 out of 15, Ya?”
I was shocked, “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” I admitted as we stepped out.
It’s midnight and we’re going (Peter, Lisa, Sophie and I) to “My **** tonight (the dorm basement snack-bar). I took two seconds to splash my face with water and twist-back my hair. “How do I look?” I asked Peter.
“You’re attractive.. enough,” he said, “..I mean you fall within a bell curve.”
“You're almost 40,” I say, in the face of his non-complement.
“I’m 26,” Peter said, “You know it, and I have proof. You DO have some good points though,” he granted, while trying to drape his great, hairy, gorilla-like arm on me, “there’s your sparkling conversation and nice underwear.”
“I donated those to goodwill,” I lied, while giving him a half-gentle stiff-arm.
“You remind me of my parents,” Sophie says.
The tea (the best tea is scandalous). Lisa’s friend Baker dashed back to her room between classes yesterday. She’d forgotten the big paper she had to turn-in. It was a mad dash and passing a roommate’s open door, she realized that the girl was lowkey ************ Lisa, delighted to be an interlocutor in the matter, due to Baker’s overplus embarrassment, Lisa's trying to suggest next steps in a post-shock protocol.
Oct 28, 2022
Oct 28, 2022 at 2:30 PM UTC
Every employee's name was listed in the address field
Except for one
The one I never noticed
That we never noticed
We all marched into the meeting room as ordered
Found the CEO on an extra tall stage
To tell us
"Today is Emma McGurk's last day
But she says it's the first day
Of her tenure
As Director of Forecasting of Unintended Consequences
She's not going
So I need all of you, all 300 of you,
To help me terminator."
(Or was that terminate her?)
So we gave each other Brady Bunch nods
I had to look up to make eye contact (or is that I contact?) with superiors
Then we marched to
The cubicle of Emma McGurk
Me remembering what Santa Ana had said:
"With a few hundred more men like the San
Patricios, Mexico would have won the battle."
And the battle wasn't to be won by us
It was to be won by Emma McGurk
The CEO tried to move her
Ten of us tried to move her
Then one hundred
And then all three hundred
Even I made an effort
But she wouldn't budge
So we had to move...
To another building
Hearing that Emma McGurk was still ensconced
In the position existing only in her noggin
Until finally the old building had to be imploded
A fifth-grader winning the honor of triggering
That dusty downfall of Emma McGurk's cubicle
And the building that sheltered it
It wasn't until Signing Day Eve
That I saw her again
Pouring ink at a haiku-con
"The pay wouldn't be that bad," she told me.
"If it was by the snicker instead of the word."
Jun 8, 2012
Jun 8, 2012 at 9:35 PM UTC
person feels a wave of heat through their neck and face when struck with a thought of their ex boyfriend. a ninth grader gives them a ***** look. person leans against a cold cinderblock wall and relaxes their face. focus on the empty space between the eyeballs and the brain. feel the limp arms and identify the beat of a pulse running through them. repeat after me: self care is boring.
paul laurence dunbar knows why the caged bird sings. he never wanted to be an elevator operator. it's a point of privilege. person asks a ninth grader if a bird could see the wind, the river, the sun. "oh... no..."
one thing person notices time and again is that when these students drop something they do not pick it up. they let someone else do it. where person is from it is not like that. students would not help person like that, they think.
person remembers one time, when they themselves were in the ninth grade, dropping their lunchbox in a crowded hallway and picking it up swiftly in the next step without slowing down. a tall boy behind them said "smooth". person felt proud at the time. person feels good remembering this.
Sep 24, 2018
Sep 24, 2018 at 7:44 PM UTC
Barren halls, devoid of children
echo with the ghostly staccato of gunfire
and the mockingly musical tinkling of spent brass.
Specters of children set free through violence
mutely stand vigil over stained tile and carpet,
shocked by their sudden transition.
Parents, siblings, grandparents and family reel
from the sudden void caused by the senseless
and cowardly actions of a 2nd Amendment zealot’s son.
Christmas presents without recipients sit untouched
in secret places – never to light up the eyes
and faces of eager and happy children.
Flags fly in solemn respect at half-staff
signifying a nation in mourning, yet a nation
so reluctant to address the core of these issues
which have made these crimes so common-place.
Bumbling and incompetent politicians – securely
in the NRA’s and gun-lobby’s pocket are quick to *****
the party lines: “Guns don’t **** people.” “My fork and knife made me fat.”
All the while the mentally tormented and dangerous
continue to take up arms and slaughter innocents –
as apparently their constitutional rights are more sacred
than the life of a first-grader.
How long America, will you dip your pens in the blood of children
and write the laws that take their lives?
How long America, will you wrap yourself in a blood-stained flag
and spew the toxic and hateful lie that guns don’t **** people?
How many more must bleed your ink and feed your mill
before we cry, “enough is enough!!”?
© 2012 Michael Hunter
Dec 20, 2012
Dec 20, 2012 at 9:47 PM UTC
When I was a wee little 8th grader,
I was so excited for highschool.
I was ready for the next step in life.
But now that Im older, I know that I couldnt have been more wrong.
The summer after that 8th grade year,
I lost everyone I had loved.
Including myself.
I was then thrown into this huge whirlwind of teen agnst and juuls pods.
Im supposedly experiencing the best years of my life.
But how am I supposed to experience life
When by now, Im barely alive?
Aug 7, 2019
Aug 7, 2019 at 1:58 AM UTC
I'm filling up
like a landfill
my heart is starting to feel
like an anvil
And I'm starting to think that maybe,
Maybe this world's not meant for me
or me for it
or us for each other like in a
"mutual" break up
which is an idiom,
because love is never quite
symmetrical.
See, love is like a heart drawn by a
fifth grader.
It's never quite the same
on either side
and if you ever told them they were wrong
for drawing it that way
you lied.
Because that:
lop sided
sloppy
hunched over heart,
that:
innocent
delicate
Beautiful heart,
Is exactly what love is.
When we're older,
we learn to draw straighter lines
to hide our shaking hands.
Don't let them know you're nervous.
We learn to whisper what we don't want heard,
To make silent our thoughts,
in public.
Fights were meant for closed doors and walls
that are never quite thick enough
to keep words that hard, from breaking them down.
Even the fights,
that you fought against someone
who looks much too like you.
When, then, can I open my mind like a book
for only them to read.
When can I open my chest like a puzzle box
for them to put together.
When can I apologize for having before,
what I only ever wanted with them?
I just didnt know it yet.
I am a fifth graders heart
that beats five times heavier
than healthy.
Being colored in
with too deep a red.
I'm filling up
like a landfill.
My heart has reached a
stand still.
And I'm starting to think that maybe,
Maybe a square peg can find comfort
in a round hole.
Apr 2, 2013
Apr 2, 2013 at 2:24 AM UTC
When in sad
I hide it
I stare out windows and pretend I'm in a movie
When I'm sad
My smile fades
Then pops back up to mask me
When I'm sad
Sunrise and sunsets are most beautiful
When I'm sad
I sing sad show songs in my head
When I'm sad
You could make me smile
But you don't know me well enough to see through my mask
If I'm obviously sad
Then I'm trying so you will come and cheer me up
I'm smarter than a 5th grader
When I'm sad
No one can tell
Not even you
"Ok that's Cool too"
Oct 23, 2013
Oct 23, 2013 at 10:42 AM UTC
My best friend in third grade
Knew I liked this one boy
So we imagined ourselves in twelfth grade
At graduation night, throwing our caps in the air
She dared me to kiss him on the lips at that moment
In the very distant future
To declare my "like" for him after all that time
When we were about to say goodbye forever
Because to a third grader, graduation doesn't seem so final
But thinking about it now
The boy I liked in third grade
Is not the boy I love in twelfth
He wasn't even the boy I liked in fourth
Even several years ago
I imagined that if we never were together
I would find you on that night
Diploma in hand, blushing uncontrollably under my tassel
And kiss you
Tell you that I have loved you for as long as I can remember
And that I will love you until I forget myself entirely
But times changed again like they did in third grade
I am different than I was, but yet love the same
Graduation seemed to always be that time
Now or never, now or never, now or never
That if I were going to do something
Confess something to
Someone I never had the courage to love
It would be on that date
Because the next day
We would both leave
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 2:59 PM UTC
On the paint chipped pavement we went over the rules:
NO cherry bombs, NO bobbling,
NO lower-ballers, spin-tops,
chalk walkers, twenty fingers,
and especially NO skyscrapers.
So for a few minutes we played as raw as apple skin knees,
it was the roughest, toughest, hard-nosed game
of four square any fourth grader has ever seen.
But it was all over when someone crossed the line.
There was fussing, cussing, and an accusation of the mustnt’s.
Eyebrows adjacent, we argued and clawed like kilkenny cats,
we were breaking rules, we crossed the chalk.
We took sides and worst of all,
the one crucial act that we regret,
we slammed the ball down.
It towered overhead like window washers
and landed on the school’s roof.
We stopped arguing. Nobody won that day.
© Matthew Harlovic
Oct 28, 2014
Oct 28, 2014 at 9:29 PM UTC
no, i am not a first grader
incapable of knowing when to capitalize
and i type in lowercase to be nonchalant
i don't capitalize 'i' because
i am not important
my self worth is lower than the Mariana Trench
it's hard for me to even address
myself without feeling annoying
i am not more important than the word prestigious
i'm not more pretty than the word beautiful
i am not as nice as the word affectionate
i'm not as secure as the word trustworthy
it's so hard to reprogram your brain to accept
that you can be of some worth, that you can be
desirable at all after years of too much thinking
and being alone and trapped in my mind
everyday i must try my best to remind myself
that the subject of a sentence is being
complemented by the beautiful words
like the way a close friends complement you
i have to remember that there are people there for me
even if my head tries to tell me otherwise
it's a struggle every time, but
'I'
just have to try
May 7, 2021
May 7, 2021 at 5:25 PM UTC
Turns out the King of the Projects
couldn’t even tie his shoes.
Couldn’t draw or make love.
Hell could barely even read
and definitely didn’t know how to sing the blues.
Turns out the King got his crown
after two and half games of basketball
on the weedy court at sundown
the day before his tenth birthday.
Turns out the King was the roughest,
toughest, scabbiest fourth grader
in the whole **** grade, raised
from good Somalian stock and
willing to sucker punch kids
darker than he.
Turns out the 4 ft 5 King of the Projects
stood mighty tall over the
class pet ferret, ephemeral
creature of habit,
watched the
rodent with eyes peeled as if the two
shared the same beating
heart boombox.
As it turns out,
every day at noon we had music
but the drums were always
taken by the King who
pounded a steady beat to the
shake shake shake of
the music teacher's 'script
of benzos, eyes still glued
to the ferret, seeking a ritualized dance.
Turns out the class pet escaped last week.
Turns out the King stopped coming too.
Shame really. As the teacher, I felt I had
to have something to say to him.
Turns out I was just as scared as he.
May 28, 2013
May 28, 2013 at 11:23 PM UTC