Five Years of Expectations

I want to finish revision and end the worrying about all the rules and assumptions I'm fed.

I don't want to toss and turn in bed, equations and expected results playing over and over in my head.

'A quality essay planned and completed in sixteen minutes.'

Could you do that?

Did they ever stop and wonder, what about this person's goals, aspirations?

Or can they only stay focused on pieces of paper and expectations?

Why must we sit ten exams in just one week?

Did they ever stop and consider the pools of pressure at that child's feet?

It creeps upon us. It waits 'til we're weak.

We tell ourselves we're fine, we're organised,

But when we get to the exam and we try to remember what we revised,

the words jumble up and we're left wondering why?

Why, when I want to be a writer, I have to remember the solution to X divided by Y.

We get mad at ourselves, we push ourselves to do more,

cooping ourselves up in our room, writing and writing until we can't write anymore.

We want to come home and say, "hey! I got an A!"

But the truth?

No matter how some of us approach the test, it'll always end in dismay,

because of the chunks we missed out and the words we didn't say.

We could try to approach them and ask them the reasons why,

our whole future is meant to depend on the results we get,

but they'll sigh, and they can't give us a real answer

because the whole school system? It's based on a lie.