School is dead

Frozen, pale, brittle

It was murdered

By neglect

School is dead

Its corpse stricken

Under miles of

Fear and dreck

I hate its face

Its fearful grimace

Eyes that filled me

Full of shame

I hate its voice

Its thud of doom

A booming metronome

Of blame

Its shriveled hands

Did point at me

When it was quite alive and well

But I did look away

I ran away

And I am running still

Even though it lies dead

In its bolted coffin now

I am drowned in fear

That it will spring awake somehow

That it will chase me

Through my days

Accusing me of being bad

Accusing me of being dumb

Or of being too damn sad

“There is something wrong with you”

School will tell me this out loud

“You will never ever be worthy”

It whispers smug and proud

But it is dead and buried

Out of sight it will stay

The deed is done, I killed it clean

It should be far away

The dirt above its coffin

Hides hideousness within

The grass upon the dirt

Hides the ugly skeleton

I look at the grass and wonder

What it would be like to dig

To tear through soil and ground

To unearth my problem so big

And so I start to rip apart

The filthy brown debris

My hands a mess

My face distressed

My body sore and fatigued

It drains my soul

My very core

Who I am I don’t know anymore

What I want

What I’m doing

All gets lost in the tumbling ruin

And after six feet

Ends the craze

After a lifetime

In the maze

I rise, bloody

I rise, smoking

I fizz, I spark

I’m nearly broken

After this ordeal

I smash

Open the coffin

Flaring crash

And lying there

Lit up with light

Is school

A vibrant, youthful sprite

No feeble, trembling, spindly beast

But fearless radiance

An intellectual feast

I look upward

And see the sky

But blocking my view

Is dirt piled high

Scads of soil

Mountains of mire

And I’m at the bottom

Of this terrible ire 

This fearful, feculent tower I see

Has been slashed through by little old me

I fought through the muck

I tore through the pain

And now I see allI had to gain

I gained something

In what I lost

I lost my fear

No matter the cost

I lost my fear

I dug a hole

I made a gash

Inside my soul

The fear was dirt

Dirt decrepit

That hid school

And other bodies like it

And now with fear

Destroyed at last

I can go to school

And live above the grass