Supposed To Be (Slam Poem)

Is it worth it?

All these years of schooling that we commit?

Is that the point of life?

To spend it in a classroom under a surgical knife?

To gain knowledge for what?

For it to be thrown into a job with a pay cut.

For 20 years or more,

Forced like prisoners of war.

Forever fighting to keep a “good” education.

What will morticians find in a postmortem examination?

An empty shell of a girl that wasted her time

Participating in a victimless crime.

A crime that force-feeds people experience, humanity?

For the sake of Christianity.

I get a job that I spend another 40 years working at

Achieving nothing but a stat

On a board that has probably been keeping a tally

Like a lily of the valley

Keeps track of deaths

Keeps track of the breaths

That a girl can keep before she achieves freedom

From a serfdom

That keeps on going and going and going

Knowing, owing, towing

No life experience

I am inexperienced,

Inadequate for the real world,

I am stuck in a dream-world; twirled

Of what the real world is supposed to be

Shown what I am supposed to be to an intolerable degree.

The empty shell of a girl is blinded

Am I supposed to be well minded?

Or the scholar athlete and valedictorian of the year?

Because for this girl it’s definitely not crystal clear.

I didn’t learn about the world in school

Or the golden rule.

What do we live for?

Go through a Revolutionary War for?

For a job, an education, a reputation?

Or for a love, a family, a vocation?

I waste life away

Sitting in a room for hours a day.

Getting told what is right and wrong

Playing tag along with a loose cannonball

That I drag behind me, reminding me

I have to at least get an associate degree

When I just want to live life my way.

But I’m stuck in another school day.