Protesting a Rewarding System

Ninety-two point nine four percent.

To anyone outside of high school, it means nothing,

But to many within, it means everything.

 

It causes a grimace to form,

A painful recognition of a system we disagree yet live with,

For we see no alternative.

It is a sign of a failed effort;

A number summing up all hopes and dreams, now dashed;

A figure of no value to our futures,

Yet it holds itself close to our minds and hearts.

 

What is in a number?

That which we call a grade by any other name would smell as beastly.

It does not tell anything about us,

Our likes, our loves, our now-ruined futures;

It is merely a digit expressing failure,

A hand stretched for the finish line,

The twain ne’er meeting.

 

I stared forth at the computer screen,

Its sunlight striking my face, mocking my every effort,

My daily struggles, my countless nights.

I hated that number,

Ninety-two point nine four percent.

 

I had to blame, for I cannot blame myself;

Curse the class! The teacher! The school! The system! The government! The world!!

But the number did not change.

Numbers are smart; they do not care who or what you are;

They just exist and do not feel our pain.

 

The world is a number, a grade, a digit,

It simply exists and does not care if you don’t like it.

This is accepted when it is profitable, and when it is not, we acquiesce;

For we see no alternative,

Except in our hearts which yearn for greater days which can be spent under the sunshine,

The real sunshine, the one that burns into our body and mind to impress a future filled with happiness,

Not the one the world has created and in which we live.

 

I pressed F5 in desperate hope.

Ninety-three point eight seven percent.

There is no problem.  Status quo is God.

Their, and my, future picked itself back up and began again...

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