Dear School

A Poem by tiajam

just something i wrote quickly trying to get into writing again, its really quick and just went really off track

Dear School,

Do you see? Do you see the in the corners where the unspeakable occurs? Or is that just me?

I walk around you, your beautiful angular features, bright skin so amazing and new

and as I admire you and the way you stand so strong and ergonomically designed I wonder how,

I wonder

when you were built to help and enhance the growing life’s of so many young adults, how you could stand by and see what I saw and more.

You see I was a fly on the wall in most cases, in those where I was lucky enough to go unnoticed.

But I was only there for five years, you’ve been holding all these secrets, threats, crimes, these horrible things and still you stand tall. On the front cover of the local newspaper.

“New school holds the brightest students in the area” and you pose as the sun hits you just right and those students stand before you to get their photo taken, making sure to get you in frame because you got them there, with your greatness,

but what in that photograph they can’t see are the holes, the rotting window frames and the tattered paintjobs.

They can’t see that on the inside that you hold the darkness of damaged youth, youth who don’t know how to treat others,

those who you failed, your corners too far apart nowhere to hide and too far to run.

I wonder what it is you think at night when everyone is gone and you are left with the ghosts of the events that took place that day.

Do you think of how you could improve? What could I do better next time? Or do you get fed up of hearing those questions being asked every day for the rest of your existence?

Because that’s what you were built for, right? To better them, to help them grow into adults who will never be enough, who will always strive to be more.

And what happens when they become adults? What happens when they leave and you know what they’ve done and what they will never pay for. You know the pain they have caused yet you feel no guilt.

Of course, you couldn’t have changed anything,

you’re mere bricks.

But that won’t stop me from wishing you never existed in my life.