You thought the learning was over
Chalkboard blowing chalk into the air
Teacher scratching discomfort into your ear
Chalkboard saying things you won’t hear

Class is in session, but the lesson’s eerie
Who brought horror into a classroom story?
Forgive how many times?
Tolerate how many crimes?
The toilet seat meets the dumped socks
In the quagmire of unadulterated ire
Where soccer games and that sucker’s booze
Meet to sink like rugged rocks,
Sink to spark disgust, a horrid fire
Where nobody wins, everything gets loose.

Class is in session, but the lesson’s creepy
Who brought gore into a “love”-filled story?
Keep listening for how long?
Say sorry when I’m not wrong?
The know-it-all yet mostly right attitude
Boils with the demands for attention
And contradicts those moments of little ruse
When the obvious vanishes in in-exactitude:
Hyperboles, irrational outbursts of emotion
Where nobody wins: everybody will lose

The School of Love is in session
“I do” is the entrance exam in grand pomp
Who brought horror into a classroom story?
Or gore into a “love”-filled fairy tale glory?
A cross! A cross! Who drew a cross on the chalkboard
Complete with dying man, scarred with hearts
Crowned in despicable desiccated dead plants?
It’s gross! Yeah, gross! This isn’t the promised reward
That movie with hearts had at the best parts,
When we watched and built all our horizon’s plans!

The chalkboard says He designed it
And tells us how to take it to make it
But why? why is the manual nailed with blood
To Roman torture perfected? Shall we bleed
To get the certificate at the end of this road?
“I do”, the ring, a dress, the suit… a casket?
Buffet, the ball, bouquet, …. a wreath?
Die in order to love?
Die in order to live?


You thought the learning was over
But you just entered the school at Golgotha,
Chalkboard blowing chalk into the air
Laden with a mother’s tears of joy
Teacher scratching discomfort into your ear
As creation is renewed in flesh joined at the altar
Chalkboard saying things you won’t hear
Unless you listen: class is in session. “This is how
You love one another”

(c) nyonglema