Tiny tendrils of icy breath escape your mouth

You blink away the snowflakes clinging to your eyelashes

Letting out a sigh like cigarrete smoke

Dreading today like you did the day before

And the day before 

And the day before 

For ten years all you've learned 

Is to sit still and shut up

Take notes and bubble answers

And even now you're here waiting on this frigid morning 

To get on a bus where icicles hang in the brains of students

And knives sit on their lips

You're waiting for more than this-

For what comes after high school 

Who will you be? Will you even make it there?

Because right now it seems like a whole separate lifetime

And time feels a slow as the flakes falling from the sky

Your body is freezing, your mind wintry and lifeless 

Your soul only growing colder as you wait

For more than this.