An idea on the premature death of ideas.

Over the ramshackle doorway

to the foetid domicile in which we, the meek, house our ideas

you scrawl a red cross,

as though charged with protecting a town from plague.

And despite how hard we may have tried

to rack our brains and produce a thing that might flourish delicately

amidst the noise of so many voices;

your red, ragged cross is dripping there

plain as the nose you look down

and the message is clear;

“Abandon hope all ye who would entertain these ideas

For I have seen to it that they might die so soon as they were born.”

This is why so many of us hated school.