When You Are a Number In High School

When you are in high school And you want to grow up to be something you consider even a little bit significant Your life turns into a list of priorities And if your priorities do not result in a good enough gpa Or can't fit into tiny boxes on an activities chart Then they aren't worth your time When you are in high school And you want to grow up to be something you consider even a little bit significant Your parents and teachers and counselors opinions will consume you When you are in highschool you create your own consequence filter All of your obligations go through the filter The ones with the biggest consequences you do first And the smallest consequences go last Usually the smaller consequences ones are Eating enough Sleeping enough And keeping check on your mental health When you are in high school And you want to grow up to be something You lie to your parents a lot You tell them you’re fine You tell them you go to bed at 10 every night You tell them the worst part about your day was a class you don't like When in reality it was the overwhelming stress of pleasing the adults in your life When you are in high school And you want to grow up You earn an obsession with numbers Including your SAT score ACT score GPA AP test scores Every big lest Every little quiz Every assignment you put in a basket Every notebook you spent diligent hours perfecting Because all you work doesn't matter if the numbers aren't high enough When you’re in high school And you want to grow up to be something you consider even a little bit significant do NOT stop and ask who you are doing all this for You aren't doing this for yourself Just go to class walk through the halls get the good grades Score high on the SAT, ACT, AP You can live for yourself When you are doing something significant with your life