This is for the students:
The ones who enjoy school;
The ones who hate it.
The ones who challenge themselves
And the ones who hardly care.
The “only A+’s”
And the “barely passes”.
The timid little freshman
And the confident seniors.

For the all (or the many) of us
Who have often wished for relief--
Holding out for the next holiday break,
Managing to crank out one last paper,
At 2am —-
“GOOD MORNING” the dreaded alarm shrieks
4 hours late.r
The moaning and groaning as the body is forced
Slowly out of the comfort
Of a soft, warm bed.
The rubbing of heavy-lidded eyes,
Eyes that yearn for more darkness
And rest which a teenage lifestyle
Could never afford.

And the reasons?
Social constructs dictate that
Either you are heavily involved in good,
Admirable things ——
Sports, arts, leadership, service,
And a myriad of others.
Yes, all those at once
If you wish to be noticed and praised.
“Merit” they call it.
“It looks good to colleges” they say.
“Get involved so you stay out of trouble”.
“Contribute to the school”.

OR — you spend late nights
Out with friends
Doing who knows what.
“Being a teenager” they call it.
Being “stupid”, “partying”, “messing around”.
And maybe even—-heaven forbid,
Though this is a sad reality—
Getting involved in drugs, alcohol, sex, crime.
“Living it up”, as they’d say.
The “I do what I want” attitude.

Maybe you do none of these things.
Or maybe a little of both.

Maybe you simply fill your schedule
With the most rigorous of classes,
Filling your every waking and sleeping
Hours with complicated algorithms,
Scientific and political theories,
Difficult and thought-provoking literature--
Eating, sleeping, and breathing
Dense textbooks of information.

Maybe you’re the student that says,
“Just tell me what I have to do to graduate”.
And so your homework takes little time—
But catching up on Snapchat and Instagram
And texting your best friends late into the night
Will ensure that you, too
Habitually burn the midnight oil.

No matter the type of student,
School is the commonality.
A ritual designed to empower and educate.
Yet it’s form is often boring, menial drudgery--
Meant to be a good thing, but often
Perceived and experienced as bad.

“Listen to this, read that, recite this, write that”.
And the few rare and amazing individuals
Who somehow voluntarily put themselves
Into this ritual as a tool to teach
May touch a few hearts and minds in special ways.

But the majority of them are just a mouthpiece
To stuff young brains with information;
Very little of which the pupils will use,
Excepting the rare few who will become
The next Einsteins and Curies—
They are those who will thrive in this system
Of cruel competition.
While many others are left to swim
In a meaningless sea,
Feeling like it’s pointless to reach for anything better
Than just “good enough”.

And they say this important ritual
Of waking up long before the crack of dawn,
Putting on something decent,
Getting a “balanced” breakfast in your body,
Getting yourself to class by 7:30 am,
Somehow managing to “focus”—
But often just sleeping—at that early hour,
And then continuing the ritual for another
6 hours
Is going to help us succeed.

Oh how we love to complain!

Like drinking bitter medicine,
Or forcing the body to exercise—
Benefits that come with much pain.
It’s preparation for the “real world”,
They say. And I laugh——-
For after the speeches are said,
The diplomas given,
And the caps thrown in the air,
We will quickly realize what a lousy
“Preparation” it all was.
A lie we’ve either believed or ignored
For the past 12 years.

But it’s alright.
Give us some time and some space
And most of us will figure it out.
Young adulthood will come with its fair share
Of stupidity, late nights,
Heartbreak, Ramen noodles,
And growth in the process.
But we will hardly ever view High School
As much more than a memory of youth;
An era of less responsibility, (yet excessive stress).
As little more than a “fun time”, because,
For the majority who weren’t aspiring to be
The next Einsteins and Curies,
That’s all it really was.