CPS
Location
Our lips taste of salt
as we sit at the back
of an overcrowded classroom.
Information passes through our ears
as heat waves.
Sweat stains have no place
in the classroom.
Updated books have no place
in the classroom,
but unused Smartboards have a place
in the classroom.
All we need to do is pass
through to the next level. That’s all
they care about—passing
through to the next level.
They treat education like a video game.
It’s easy to play
when they are not the ones who suffer
when mistakes are made.
Truth becomes fiction
and our voices are still not heard.
We are forced to sit
in the back of class
in sweltering heat
because we are wrong.
We wait so long for outdated books that sit on shelves and collect dust.
They cut teachers’ pay like kids cut paper in preschool,
but teachers have families too.
They don’t realize
that five year olds shouldn’t have to wake up to demolished and closed schools
that used to be their utopia,
that used to be their safe passage.
All rubble and boarded up.
They never taught
us how to make dreams
out of dust and boards.
This is more than a dream deferred.
They want us to be numb
and let them handle this,
but this is our education.
We won’t listen
when you try to say what’s best for us.
Don’t expect us to just sit here and count
down the days until graduation.
We will use every single one of those days
to make sure
that this education system is better
for students to come.
We will use these days
to make sure that five year olds don’t have to wake up to demolished schools.
We will use these days and every day after to get these blood sucking capitalists out
of our education system.
They claim that we don’t know
what we’re talking about,
but why should we trust someone
with a degree in money
to tell us
about our education?