Early morning alarms,
Year 7, set for 6.00AM
Year 8, set for 6.30AM
Year 9, set for 7.00AM
Now we don’t set alarms,
Some are still awake from the previous night
Others moan and grumble and the sound of a text message alerting them that it’s
“9o’clock, Where the hell are you?”
Routine proves right,
Breakfast for some,
Makeup for others,
Hair routines for most,
Whatever it is, we do it.
The transport is a choice,
Some walk because they are too close for a bus,
Others take the bus, but wish they could walk,
The lucky few are dropped off by there parents on the way to work
Raining days proved a different routine again,
“Mum its raining outside can you drop me?”
And now we are here,
The same tall gates, black and pointy
But we don’t think anything more of it,
We have seen these same gates every day of our lives for the past 6 years,
These are the gates which hold us back
Or push us forward, out of our comfort zones,
These gates watch us grow,
Maybe an inch taller, each year walking through.
Old converse, dusty brown from the sun
Vans, with the white strip which would land us in a lunch detention
Black spots across the floor, every inch a reminder of the gum which would land us a walk of shame to the bin
Stairs, up, down, up, down and up again.
Five times a day,
Each a different period.
“It’s been 10 minutes; we have a free technically.”
“Oh, here she comes, we don’t have a free.”
Hour lessons, learning more about how to sleep with our eyes open then actual content.
And after 6 years of doing this rodeo, we were professionals
We knew how to hold a smile with nothing behind it,
How to answer a question without knowing what was asked,
How to write an essay on a book we haven’t read,
“Fake it till you make it,”
And everyone wonders why we are so fake,
It’s how we survive,
Survive the class,
Survive lunch,
Survive
But now we leave,
Leave with a goodie bag in one hand
Like a party we attended in year 4,
In the other we held a graduation certificate,
And on our shoulders was the weight of making our parents proud,
It was lifted,
Or maybe that’s because we no longer need to carry a school bag?
We stand, cuddled under our parents arms,
We are taller then them now,
But not just bigger in appearance,
And they know it,
They no longer have to fix our spelling mistakes,
They haven’t for a few years,
But this makes it real,
We stand together for one last time,
Bonded through the class of 2020,
In 10 years from now we might see each other at woollies,
We might smile,
Or dart our eyes,
Avoiding the elephant in the room,
We never left,
Will we ever truly leave?
The roots of our childhood intertwined into the walls of school,
So maybe our plans will be fulfilled,
Or maybe we wont leave,
Maybe our kids will go to the same school, and see the same teachers,
“Class of 2020” they shout
And we smile,
“We made it,”
Made it to the start of a new chapter,
The one of long coffee breaks, and for ever ongoing complaints,
Hailee Pickering’s Blog 