And you don’t want to.

Even your fingers won’t strike the keys correctly. What does it matter if you can type 80 words per minute and more when you are cool? You can’t do that now. You can hardly hit forty, you are back-spacing so much. Struggling to string a coherent thought together as your fingers fumble across the glowing keys.

You’ve been typing too many long words like paterfamilias and mathematician today. Now your brain is done. Short words. Concise thoughts. Little to no commas. Oh how you hate seeing the long paragraph as it stretches like a vast rip of information down the page.

Small pieces.

Little lines that don’t even cross the page. Those are what you want to make.

Incomplete tears.

Because that way, your page won’t fall to pieces as you stamp your frustrated thoughts

All

Over

It.

But you should probably clarify: you have been doing schoolwork. Yep, that’s right

Painfully

Frustrating

Schoolwork

That no matter how many times your family tells you you will need, it’s still worthless.

At least to you.

Sure, maybe not to your perfect student brother

But then, you’re not your brother.

How you HATE school.

It is stupid

It tells you to work on projects and write things that are either of absolutely no interest and little worth-

Or – even worse – it assigns you tasks that are less than a fraction of what you would do if

You

Taught

Yourself.

You know, like you’ve already been doing all these years.

All Writing Strands and Grammar have ever done for you is make writing loathsome.

Where have you learned most?

From reading books on your own.

Otherwise, school is a burden.

And you are so tired.

Your mind won’t function. It won’t absorb that information and regurgitate it onto the page anymore.

You’ve tried.

Eight tests in two days.

.

.

.

Yeah, your mind is numb.

Why didn’t you take those tests before?

Because they were stupid.

You wanted to get back to learning.

So you did extra reading

And never got around to the tests.

You did extra writing

Not the stuff they assigned, though

Better stuff

Realer

With more depth

Not these stupid “Now compare the Greek and Roman empires!” type assignments.

Or where they tell you to find the ‘inner meaning’ of books and poems where you can tell, from experience, that this person had no inner-meaning in mind?

Your mind recoils and lip curls just to think about it.

Why can’t they just let you learn?

Why do they have to test you on the little things you didn’t pay attention to because the big details – wars, emperors, philosophies, government – were more interesting?

Your subjects are beneath you

These were written for a 12-year-old

WHY must you do this cursed work!?

You sigh, shaking your head. You know that, more than anything else, you must view it as a lesson of discipline . . .

But couldn’t they have chosen subjects that were more important? That would have more value outside of school!?

They don’t actually have you accomplish anything. Just little pieces of information spilled from the over-filled and nauseous intestines of your mind.

How you hate school.

You hate it.

You hate it.

You hate it.

All you want to do is learn. School isn’t learning – it’s memorizing. It’s cramming. It’s record-keeping.

How much have you actually learned?

Only that which you went the extra, unassigned mile to gain.

And that doesn’t even count.

You sigh.

Worthless.

School

Is

Worthless

.

.

.

In fact –

it’s harmful.