(no subject)
The community
has spoken.
I
am
quick to
comply.
The pricetag on my freedom
is
too high.
I
twitch
at the thought that the city
will pay
my bills.
My liberty
is bought
at the expense of my freedom.
Choice.
Burn.
Smoke.
Ash.
Cash.
The blue light sale on my education
flashes
furious.
I
am
neither fluent in English nor an educator,
but self-deception
works
wonders they say.
By the time the folder
graces
my hand
(five years and counting)
I
will find
myself an expert in my own mind.
I
will spend
my life until retirement
(47 years and counting)
trying
to convince
15-year-old-alcoholics of the same.
Visions of
meeting
these delinquients behind the bench
are lost
as I
find
myself behind a podium
preaching
the gospel of Shakespeare in words they
will
never
care
to
learn
to
understand.
My sense of justice
goes
into cardiac arrest as I
watch
Seat 1A
jump
onto his desk and
dance
in an
obstinate
sordid
repugnant
manner.
Seat 1A
will
never
learn
the meanings of
obstinate
sordid
repugnant.
I
lack
the authority to
tell
him to leave my class.
I
drift
in my mind to my world behind the bench.
I
sentence
him to three years in Ju. V.
Reality
kicks
me in the teeth, and I
pray
for ritalin and alcohol.
SNAP!
The light
goes
out.
I
clutch
at my freedom.
I
curse
the darkness of
economic
socal
educational
political
familial
societal
decay and
pay
my loans with pride.
If I
am
to be imprisoned, it
will be
a prison of my own design.