Mom,

We both know how much school haunts me.
As though the words of a teacher were burning my insides,
Catching fire at the tip of my tongue,
The sparks traveling down my throat and reducing me to ash.
I don’t wake up in the morning.
I keep the covers tightly over my head,
Allowing the warm cocoon I call my bed to hold me for just five more minutes.
Five more minutes without the plagued darkness of the morning,
Watching the sunshine colors of my dreams slip through like sand
As I begin the feel the cold tickle at my feet
And In that dazed glaze I try wrap myself in those flea ding pockets of happy ignorance
It's a shield against the bullet of my alarm
Straight to the head heart of my dreams
Just five more minutes... In my thoughts
Because that’s where I know my dreams blossom;
Petals every incomparable color of the word awesome.
That’s where I believe I can be free, though it is a prison.
But, to myself, I can transcribe every dream into an abstract art;
Tea turned into T turned into Texas because my dreams are just as big,
Though much less western,
And much more feudal Japan with light sabers.
But, with bears wielding them wearing their favorite hats.
I’m barley able to wake up.
Because I’m just too tired;
The thoughts of school and life rattle me in anxiety
But you, mom, still keep me as your number one priority
And I know mom, school is important.
But it seems, the more schooling I have the less learning I do:
Just regurgitating another man’s words whose name is on the side of a book that
Only seems to wear down my spine, keeping me from walking out that door, as though the pressure in your own words weren't enough
But who needs to walk when you can sit?
Doodling like it is a picture a man keeps in his helmet,
Reminding him of a life he had and is fighting for.
Well, I have no idea what I’m fighting for anymore.
I just feel at war with myself, in the trenches of a desk.
And this war, truly, what is it good for?
I see the tension in a teacher’s words as they try to pullback the rhines of minds who don’t even care.
Only so they can carve out that innocent fruit they've blossomed into and pour molten state standards.
I wonder when teaching became an assembly line.
But, I guess that’s just schooling, right?
Henry Fords, manufacturing the latest and greatest, brand new model-Teenagers?
I’d much rather be a star-ship.
Because we all know those things were meant to fly,
And I would be able to stare forever across an inspiring sort of sky.
Where the only horizon would forever vanish,
Because that’s just how I decided to paint my sunrise;
But the majority of society will call it an unfinished work.
I’ll call it an unfinished society.
I’ll call it by a word no one had ever thought of creating, mending a word without the extra letters.
Because I can tell you I love you with only four characters that mimics the heart it is derived from ( I <3 U).
This is unknown even to the books I am applauded for when I adhere to.
Books, I am told I need to study...?
But they don’t hold the answers!
I want to keep those school books in my locker.
And maybe they could feel that same solitude I feel as I retreat from their figure 2’s and 3’s,
Then maybe they could just let it be.
Now, this doesn’t mean I have anything against books.
I am no book anarchist trying to take away their jobs.
I simply wish the books that deteriorate my spine and my mind,
And just anchor me down to thoughts proven wrong in a hundred years would walk with me,
Instead of piggybacking like the parasites they’ve become.
And maybe teachers could guide me down a path I’ve chosen:
The unknown or the path well lived and well lit,
But, I need to choose the one that fits
Whether it be out that door or back to the front lines of my seat
Mom, I know what you do is only for my own good;
A self-destructive child who knows nothing because he is only seventeen.
But I wish you’d let me just dream.
Can’t you see how tired I am?