Why I'm angry

It isn't the fact that she was rude,
It isn't the detention that she missed,
Or the list of obscenities she's hurled at other students,
Or that when challenged on her earrings she refuses to remove them.

It isn't that she doesn't understand the poems
Or that she wants it all answered for her
Or her lack of homework, or her lost report
Or that she says things before she's had a chance to think them through,
It isn't that she's always alone, it isn't that thick set mascara
It isn't that the boys avoid her, because they know that she's harder
It isn't she caused a riot in class for singing the praises of the BNP
It isn't that she hates our school,
It isn't that she questions me
It isn't that she threw her book on the floor
Or that i've seen her cry more than any student I've worked with before,

It isn't her folder. It isn't the swastika
It isn't that she smokes behind Tescoes when other kids are having dinner.
It isn't that she's always late by ten minutes
It isn't the display that she cut up
Or that when asked why she did it, she said 'Because I'm a fuck up,
Sir. Don't waste your time on me,
Sir. Just leave it, I'll never ever get it,
Sir.

It's none of that

What it is,
Is that while I'm thinking about what to try next to make that poem make sense to her,
to show her that she can do it,
you're sat opposite, shovelling jelly and icecream into your face,
Scowling at her as she stomps past,
Telling me how you taught her last year
How you put her in her place
And that she's
'A fuck-up. A waste of time. Best to leave her, she'll never ever get it'

It's that
I've realised
What you've been doing

It's that I've realised
What you are

It's that you can't see that something's only worth doing if it's demanding
It's that you only want to help the students who won't make a stir,
It's that while you're labelling someone without any understanding
I can see the Nazi in you that you're trying to make out of her.