behold! a life full of everything you were expecting.

i'd like to read a story in the newspaper
that ends with "but she was just having a bad dream.
really, she's okay."

School supplies are therapeutic.

You walk down the rows of notebooks, pencils, rolls of tape; you think back to every time you've been in that same, particular row. That same, particular store. You know it was the same because these stores never close - people always need school supplies. But the colors have changed and the prices have changed and the designs have changed and there's a thousand different ink distributers you've never heard of.

You remember sitting in a cart and being pushed down the aisle by the boy with hair too long, and you remember going with him later that day to let him chop it off. His face was better hidden, but it was his sense of humor you liked; his sense of humor you grew tired of just one month later.

You remember sitting in a desk with folders sprawled in front of you, organizing the papers on the very first day of a brand new class. The kids weren't that interesting, but it was their shared interest you liked; their shared interest you grew tired of just one month later.

So you grab up something orange. It has a bird on it and it has a quote and the quote makes you smile because it sounds like something that could've danced along your own lips and probably did at one point. You take it, you buy it, you imagine the pages you'll fill with something wonderful. The truth is, it's going to hold the words you think when you're bored outofyourmind in your second period class. You'd rather just enjoy taking the damn notes, but life isn't about what you'd rather enjoy. It hasn't been since the very first time you stood in this row, grabbing a notebook, and imagining the pages you'll fill with bits of your life that are controlled by those who know better with out ever knowing you.

The truth is
They don't know better.
They never actually know better.
They know what they went through,
what held them back,
what got them ahead,
what challeneged them,
what inspired them,
what it took to get them where they are.
But where are they?

They're standing in front of a room that fifteen years before they were dying to get out of. They're spitting out words that fifteen years before they would've laughed at. They're spitting out words that they know aren't true because it's easier than admitting that nothing they're teaching you is going to add up to being happy; is going to add up to any life at all. They're getting you ready to be thrown in to a market and they're getting wrapped up in quota's of children; of robots. The historical reference in your second paragraph is much more important than any kind of dream you have, and they're trained to make you feel like it will always be that way. They forget to ask about your day; to care about your day. They forget to ask you what you do when you're not sitting in a room and being reprogrammed. They forgot, because they don't know, because they've been trained and now they're training you.

But there they are.
Spitting out words.
Trying to say that words are powerful.
Trying to say that they're helping you get out of there if you're just like them.
But where are they?

You don't reach any one when you recite the same meaningless points we've been fed since the third grade.
They're more redundant than any infinitive John's used in a paper.
They're fake. They're stolen by someone who knows they're bull shit just as clearly as you do.

Stop
feeding
me
bull shit
in the
form
of a
grade.

Stop
waving
my future
in front of me
like a carrot
that you
have
any
control
over.


I'd rather be pushed down an aisle in a cart, paying attention to the speeding tile beneath me, than slide along to peer at the assorted prices attached to the exact, same materials.

In two decades, I'm going to be happy, and that's going to be better than you.
I never had to study for an algebra test to know that I'll be better than you.