My mum hated school.

She only learnt 4 words.

Same shit

different day

*

I don’t like

school.

The board is too far, too close.

Classroom too noisy. The words dance.

They don’t give me hand-outs.

I hate writing, jumping, moving.

I like Art.

Pictures, drawing, dreaming.

No drama.

No www. words.

Why force me to go?

Spend all day in that hellhole?

It is

TORTURE.

I hate verses, jokes,

computers, surprises.

Bad news.

The Art teacher had a breakdown, left.

*

Do you think

I’m lazy, crazy,

indolent, unwise

idle, foolish,

lethargic, silly,

sluggish, senseless,

slothful, irrational,

stupid?

Confused

by complex phonetics?

The rhythm

of the system?

The spelling

compelling

the sentence to

boogaloo-shoowapdiwoo.

The syllables

ridicule.

Dyslexia

Is no laughing matter.

My head hurts.

How do you spell ANXIETY?

*

If I turn down my anger,

Will I get treatment faster?

Bypass

the 2-year waiting list.

How do you spell

DEMURE?

I need to find what colour,

font size works.

Black background,

white text.

How do you spell

METAPHOR?

*

I must manage,

Move forward, cope.

I do

lists

catalogues

sequences

directories

inventories

I must devise

my own class.

How do you spell

Autonomous?

I hack

into an online account.

I buy

a library of books.

How do you spell

SURPRISE?

Macbeth – a tale of murder, intrigue,

devious plots to keep people down and others ascend.

Have you heard

SHAKESPEARE?

*

The final test

was a killer.

Quiet room to decrease tension?

No – main hall, obnoxious, bellicose. Brain freeze.

EXAM

RESULTS

Failure.

Catastrophe.

Fiasco.

Disaster.

Miscarriage of justice.

All the words mean the same thing.

I thought I was winning.

It was all a waste of time.

I want this poxy world to STOP

CEASE.

I worked so hard, to fall so far.

I was a person who dreamed

BIG BLACK WORDS

ON A WHITE BACKGROUND.

My system

destroyed by theirs.

*

My mum hates my school,

bangs on walls,

takes days off work,

knows 4 new words.

Re-mark? How much?

That’s 3 words, 4 syllables, mum.

Overworked

under pressure.

Examiners said they made an error,

most effusive in their apologies.

teachers are human, get tired.

I am amazed, stunned, shocked by their tone of speech.

Even though I am top of the class now,

Mum says we cannot afford the cost of their mistakes.

*

What job uses

the most effective words?

Lawyer.

That’s what I’m going to do.

Then I can ask ‘Why?’

any time I like.

I’ve got to go now.

I’m off to teach my mum

how to say

Same shit different day, in Latin.

eodem die

diversa stercore