The monotonous yellow hum of the lights held us sideways
Our bags all a rustle on our backs
Contorting us into hunchbacked old children
Our grandfather’s legacy in our faces
Ever mercurial, our expressions of piety
To the altar of education, education, education
As we tried to find the shadows of what we learnt
Within that yawning void of hums
Trains of thought sacrificed along with the gleams in our eyes
As we breathed ourselves closed
Speeding headlong till it burnt behind our eyes
Mercy was a talisman we tried to wear with pride
Like armbands
As we gazed upon the rumours of our futures, swimming the tide
And the scars of the place held us in contempt
Before any crime