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Our mark in passing

This is a poem I wrote while still in Public School about... well, public school. I was in my school's "gifted and talented" program yet recieved no guidance, counseling or consideration for the particular challenges that Gifted students face. The attitude was that of "You are Gifted, thus you should excel with minimal effort in all of your classes." Yeah, okay. I would if I wasn't so damn bored by the lack of challenge that I stop paying attention long enough to lose track of the lesson.

Our Mark In Passing December 5, 1989

Look at us, sitting in rows organized and lined up. Our seats identical. Only our faces and clothes are different and they can even make our clothes the same if they decide to. Eight times a day we go to the same places we were the day before. The teacher checks each day to be sure you're in the same seat you were in the day before. And to think, this place is supposed to teach us to be "well rounded individuals." Sure, we'll be well rounded, every corner will have been smoothed over, So that our rough edges will not catch, snag or irritate the Walls as we are processed through this building. Heaven forbid we make a mark on the instituion as we pass. "Say "thankyou" to all the teachers, even the ones you hate and say only happy things to the parents when you graduate, then smile and go away. Fit in with society the way we made you to fit, don't make waves, don't change things, or we will have failed in our attempt of programming you as we taught." But we will not come out as individuals, our rough edges and corners made us different, and so in smoothing them over they rub out and cover up our identities. All that lost so that the System can process us through without wearing out. Yet some of us are hard, like diamonds, we cannot be smoothed and the Walls bleed with change where we have been pushed through. The wound will heal but there will still be the scar, we will have made our mark in passing.

Spooky Poet

spookypoet@angelfire.com

Note: I had a habit of walking down the hallways with my hands "clawing" the painted cinderblock walls of my school well before I wrote this poem. It was a friend that pointed out the possible symbology of that after she read the poem.

This poem was "borrowed" from http://www.geocities.com/iamananka/

Written by: Spooky Poet
5 December 1989

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