Hard Time

No one tells me what to do,

you tell me no but I do it anyway,

'cuz I'm my own person,

the student says amid the

familiar desks, chairs, windows,

grubby floor tiles. He is a

shape, too: a box in a seating chart,

a check in a column, a lump at a desk,

all hard angles, sounding off

his song that he would swear is

unique in its singular note

of defiance, saying I AM--

the walls and the floors

have heard it all before,

small-room big talk

that rings out and dissipates

like chalk erased into

clouds of choking dust,

shouting it out over others' heads,

brazen morning orator issuing

forth from his rocky outcrop,

this risk-taker, cliff diver,

reckless driver, nothing without

his audience, sycophant circle

minions for each other,

thug-lite insubordination brothers,

soon to be free from this

sentence of kindergarten to twelfth,

hard time on the inside.