To That One Teacher in That One Class
To that one teacher in that one class
Who made us all believe that his final
Will be easy and short,
So we all prepared strenuously for other classes,
Filling up the hungered desire for knowledge
And good grades, while textbooks for that one class
Laid untouched, collecting dust, and only slightly
Probing away at our consciousness in the back end of our mind and
Thank you to that one teacher who - after giving us easiest quizzes all semester -
Gave us absolute hell on a final, completely not preparing us for how
Hot and exhausting that hell was going to be and even so,
Thank you, for letting us quickly review for your class for a mere 3 hour period, the day before,
While we spent entire days in the library drowning in the flood of
Books, notes, and practice quizzes; however, if you would have explained
The impossibility of some of your problems and the constant feeling of
Running just behind the clock, almost reaching it, but it still slipping right under our grasps,
Since time is a much faster racer than us - I learned - and it crossed the finish line,
Well before us - and we could do nothing more but work our legs to the absolute limit
And well beyond, yet see nothing more but dust of a trail that was left behind and
Thank you to that one test for letting us leak more ink on our hands as we thought it out
Than on paper of laborious problems for which the answer seemed
About as obvious as the solution for world hunger,
And yet, you have expected us to know it well enough
To have the nerve of putting it on our final, and
Have you - that one teacher - realized your mistake
As you called out the last ten minutes and all of us
Sweared under our breath as not a single person could finish
That test,
And you - that one teacher - could hear a collective choir of
Our hearts beating faster to the symphony of our hands writing nonsense
And guesses faster than our mind could process our own thought, but
We just wanted something on paper, and we wanted to
Thank you - that one teacher - who managed to break an entire classes’ spirit by
Simply saying two words - those two damned words -
Times up.