For my students

I recently wrote a free-verse thinking about how in our current school system, not only are teachers and students kept at a distance from one another but are also pitted against each other. As a NYC public school teacher, I am told to be careful because anything I do is liable to get me reported as possibly terminated. I am told to be careful to not care too much about the students. I am told not to get too close...but what's the point of teaching if you can't care about the people you are teaching? And so, I wrote about it. I am afraid to post this because I could get in trouble since everything gets teachers in trouble these days. (Society hates teachers cuz we try to get people to think for themselves, god forbid.) but here it goes....

Do you know
that I dream about you in
the secret place
of my mind?
I dream of a time when you are safe
like I say you are
of a place where you can
live out your dreams
without fear
without the obstacles
society has emplaced
I dream of your smile when
 you talk bout all that it is
 you want out of life
Do you know
that when I dream about you
I cry knowing what it is
that is waiting for you outside of the walls of this uterus called school
That when we give birth to you
we spit you out to be
another gear in the wheel of
our rotating and self-perpetuating proliferating
social machine that
keeps us running in circles like hamsters

You know that when
the whole world fades away
and social restrictions don't
regulate my everything
I open my heart like
the floodgates of Citedal
and let everything collapse
and it is when I am truly free
and when I let myself feel
and dream
all that that psychotherapists could love to diagnose
in-complacent, borderline hot-mess disorder
BUT
By day, I live out my oath
  to be a heartless robot
assembly line 9-5 participant
social machine subdued fear induced conformity
And thus,
I stand here
look upon you
a hypocrite
cuz
my dreams for you, for me, for us
occur far away from
the realm
of the institutional structure
that tells me you are to be feared and ashamed of
and tells you I am not to be trusted
   that keeps us at a distance
perpetuating isolation
                    frustration
                    miscommunication
because I tell you the lies
they told me
     "follow the path laid out, set before you
by the omniscient Big Brother
and your life will be all the more better cuz of it"
Yet, here I am and my life is where it was yesterday
and the day before that
and the day before that
and before that
and before that
Stuck
unable to find a way out of this rat race
out of running 'round in circles
and live out my dreams
You know,
I sold me dreams for security
but I will not sell my heart

So I dream about you at night
and dream about holding you
reassurin you that we will find a way
and that I'm just as scarred as you are
but we will find a way
but we will find a way
even in out fractoluminescence
I reach out cuz
Cuz I want us to be whole and I will NOT sell my soul
But until I can find a way
to break out from our fractured
distorted
existence
I will dream
and hope
and envision
you and me
away from social restrictions
after we have parted to come back
in the spiral
that keeps us apart