Score Me - A Spoken Word Poem

Score Me by Kat Fairbrother (Grade 11)

It is a funny thing

How time can change so much

How time can change so little

How time can do nothing at all

I recall being very young

And being proud in knowing

How to count to 200

200

Two hundred and ten kids

In my school

And we all wanted to be loved

Love the players, who hated our work

I remember finding all of my assignments

Too easy,

easy;

See me work through these problems

One by one, faster, answer it and get a prize

I did it perfect the first time and was the best

Best for me, beats me why it was so easy

The rest of the work was

for those wide smiles that followed

So smart, they said, so talented, bright as a new friendship

You, youth fleeting as soon as I realized

These smiles and words were like gold

Do the work, get the reward

It was so simple

Simply wonderful

As I got older they were my salvation

Signs and notes that proved I

Was good, good enough, good for them 

Rest assured I felt invincible

When teachers and parents, mentors and friends

Praised me for this thing that came so effortlessly

I breezed through these assignments

Getting handed symbols and signs

That told me I was worth something

But these numbers and letters, notes and grades

Were not as solid, not as comforting

As the praises and validation and words that followed

I always tried to grab for them, reaching

Reach them and feel full, feel fulfilled

Fill me with something else, please, something that matters

But if a dog does a trick once it is incredible

If it does the trick hundreds of times it is boring

Bury me in grades that mean nothing

Note that the thing I did not learn

Was that I was so trapped in these A’s, A Plus

Plus the walk of time never took me with it

I was left behind and the praises stopped

I proved I could do it, so why did it matter to them

My work started to die, grades dropping and smiles stopping.

“You used to be so good, what happened?”

No, I can’t ask for help

Do not drop me into the throne and then 

Expect me to ask for aid once I fall from it

It is a cruel way to hurt someone

If I am not talented, what am I

If I am not better, I must be terrible then

For all the praises have turned sour

Swear to me that I am not my grades

And do not tell me that I will be fine

If all I have from my time here

Is the validation, the happiness that came from my work

What else is worth more

More smiles, bring back the love

For if I am not my academic success

What is the point of letting time shape me

Into something that is not marked and scored

Into perfection