Do you really think
this is the time
to pour concrete over a seed
before it even learns
how to breathe?

You hand a teenager
a mountain of numbers,
a maze of theories,
complex things they never asked for
and call it “preparation.”
But preparation for what?
To forget themselves?
To swallow a life they didn’t choose?

Isn’t it better
to let them wander,
to stumble,
to taste freedom while it still feels new?
Isn’t it better
to let them rise in their own rhythm,
instead of chaining them to desks
and calling the chain “future”?

If degrees are so sacred,
can they not be earned later,
when the heart is steady
and the soul less bruised?
Why must the young
be forced to solve riddles
they do not care for,
when they are already solving
the riddle of themselves?

A teen is a storm,
a flame,
a garden breaking through concrete.
But you jam them,
compress them into shapes
that were never theirs.

And then you wonder
why the light goes out.