what are we doing to children

I’ll shout about the dying glory in seeing hundreds married to percentage signs, 

for what is a grade when you’re not alive? 

I found myself when I escaped the machine, 

when A*s and calloused friendships duly fell away from me. 

A hundred marks tally only wasted centuries in the validation famine. 

At last, hole punched confessions of my experiences, aren’t condemned for peer-assessing.

Education is a wreckage, notwithstanding that to learn is a blessing. 

Don’t detain those who flaunt passions, then blame them for forgetting.

You’ll kill off artisan creativity, and choke those with aptitude medleys.

Watch them lose loving what they love, to algebra and indices.

Meaning they can calculate, hypothetically,

how many destinies 

are lost to flawed systems in schools,

except they’re not taught how to analyse commands from betrayals. 

© Mollie Mardel