Joe, the master of discussion

His pencil tapping in percussion

Saying something, asking a question

Nothing but a blank expression

Talks about how Buttercup is different

Something we all knew in an instant

Because isn’t postmodernism just another word for reality

These are words I didn’t say

Because sometimes silence is okay

Chatter, voices

Answers, choices

Kyleigh shares her art

But it wasn’t really art, it was a grade

Just like this poem

If not from passion and inspiration, creation is meaningless

So then isn’t

This meaningless

Then how can it mean something and nothing all at once

How can role reversal be postmodern

Because reversal does not fix things

And simply transfers

Simmi stresses over vocabulary words

Stayed up late to get them done

We all pay no attention

In her head we do

We like to think people listen

But they don’t

I take notes, I observe

For once I’m not the one talking

Vanessa is the most prepared

I didn’t know her

She was the most prepared

And we forgot about her

Natalie was smart

But sometimes the word smart is relative

And it’s about the number of syllables in a sentence

Isn’t it funny

That we get rewarded on matters of syllables and conjugations

And judged accordingly

Isn’t it funny

That we read books about postmodernism

When all we want is to succeed within a stereotype

When all we want is to be anything but different

We want to excel in the world in which we are placed

But that isn’t the assignment

The assignment was for me to come up with something clever

But meaningless

I am not meaningless

And so I’m writing about what I saw and heard

I heard teenagers, apathetic as we are

But I heard an indiscreet wanting from each voice

Wanting to be wanted, to be perfect

I saw a facade around each one

Joe acting cold, Kyleigh tough, Simmi careless, Natalie clever, Vanessa shy

And me?

I just watched

If we are all checking boxes, how are we supposed to not fit into them?

How must we characterize ourselves without options?

How do we know who we are?

We reach through darkness

Caused by society’s blindfold

No one is alone

But then, aren’t we all?

This is meant to make you uncomfortable

Because that is the purpose of life

To push boundaries

And so in a world of replicas

This poem should be authentic

In a world of fraud

Is it better to be rogue

But is it a world?

Or a country?

State?

County?

City?

Town?

School?

Person?

People change other people

And I feel that is why I am writing this

To try to open eyes

To try to change something

Because in a setting of mistakes we are unallowed to make

An exposition in which the truth is discouraged

It is asked for, but it is unwanted

I wanted to make something real

Something with meaning

So that is what happened in the discussion

And this is how I chose to tell it

Just notes

Just observations

That we as people don’t see

And thus don’t act upon