Tag: school

Problematic

“You’re an enigma”
mother would tsk,
ushering me out of the door,
brown bag lunch,
book bag dragging,
to catch a ride across town

a special classroom –
desks pushed together
formed quads, and
walls retracted,
created one large room,
the bustle of activity
a constant

no readers here,
or math sheets,
it was free learning,
cross-curricular,
learned about history
from novels,
math and science
through applications,
wrote poetry,
read Shakespeare,
enacted plays,
and while some went to shop
or home economics,
I tackled Mensa puzzles

we debated
current affairs,
grew a social conscience,
progressed individually

“Men don’t like smart women,”
was all my mother could say,
shaking her head with disgust
at this daughter, who spouted
politics with her father, and
whose career goals,
prepubescent,
aspired beyond the 3 k’s.

(Penned for dVerse, hosted tonight by Amaya Engleking.  I’ve also snuck in Daily Addictions prompt:  enigma.)

Enrolment

If life was an English class
I’d enroll again for high school,
concentrate on the editing,
hope to gain something
the second time through

I’d excel at the assignments –
experience adds so much maturity
to the written word – and teachers
would deliberate and decide
that I don’t belong, and where

would that leave me?
Both the rigidity of self-judgment
and my softer, creative side
lecture me on the futility
of repeating past success or failure,

but; what else is there in life
to desire; what options lie ahead
for this diseased self: imposed
rest feeds my reflective side,
my mind regresses unwittingly.

I could study psychology, finish
a program once started, then
abandoned (a pattern I loathe),
but what merit lies there –
another backwards movement.

And what is this damnable urge
to perfect what has been, rewrite
the past, excel in the literature
of my own story?  I am destined
play a secondary role, foibles

contributing to the charm of
my character – maybe I should
enroll in a course on acceptance
learn to embrace the folly of
my youth, point myself forward.

(Image: www.bbc.co.uk)