You sit at your desk for an hour, pondering these endless questions,
You ask yourself what’s 6 to the power of 9, God, remember the lessons.
You wrack your brain searching for answers that do not come,
You look up from your sheet to observe half your class already done.
You start to sweat, your chest quickly falls and rises,
You curse your teacher for this test full of surprises,
And, that’s when the panic sets in.
When your tears start to brim and intrusive thoughts begin.
You cannot fail. You have expectations to meet, degrees to achieve,
Take me back to elementary with simple A’s, B’s and C’s,
Now, it’s an A, sure,
But is it an 88 or a 94? Please, tell me my score.
We obsess upon these numbers, these fractions,
Do you remember when it was still only additions and subtractions?
We look to these percentages for our self worth,
Do you not think it’s about time we put our mental health first?
First the numbers on the scale and now these digits black on white,
When will we realize that the way we do things, was never alright...