I’m currently a senior in high school, and decided to capture some of my thoughts regarding school in this poem…

The fresh smelling, blank pages 

of the writing journal my English teacher

handed out sprawl with 

endless possibilities. 

The ease of transferring my jumbled,

naive thoughts onto a page 

is something I dearly miss.

Now the possibilities are

suffocating.

The pressure to make every word

perfect leads to no

words coming out at all.

School was a time to find the best deals on new 

pens, binders & notebooks. 

I was armored with confidence 

which is now chipped away at.

Numbers swell as they’re entered in, 

taking the form of darts as they 

stick to that armor.

Labeling, defining

 my progress.

How can I find room to label my own journey?

School was a time to adorn notebooks 

with those printable, sticky labels 

that I could never 

seem to put on straight. Dedicating 

black for English, red for Math, 

green for Science & blue for History

is something I don’t have to do now.

Because I’m a dedicated student 

and know where everything is. 

But I still don’t know 

what I want to be labeled as.

Doctor

Engineer 

Policy-maker 

Scientist? 

No label can tell me that. 

There was a time when the first day

was filled with an excitement 

to learn. 

The desire to succeed –

to improve –  

is no longer a desire, 

but a pressure, 

washing the excitement, 

the magic, away. 

Will the magic ever come back?