Killjoy Poem by Percy Dovetonsils

You're right
I do play favorites
and you're one of them
because you erupt volcanically
when you think
I'm going to give you a B
instead of the A
you think you deserve
for not contributing to class discussions
for your blurry theses
for your Martian grammar
for your mask of gloom and doom
for your relentless focus
on grades, not learning,
for your absence
of curiosity
and wonder
for your cynicism
and paranoia
for your talent
for reducing
the thrilling
to the dreary
for your obstinate deafness
to the symphony
of the universe
for your perverse blindness
to all things
bright and beautiful
for the waste
of your own
youth
for your passive aggressive withholding
for your mad impassioned rants
about the world's
dark plots
against you
for your self-pitying furies
for your refusal
to cop
to your own failings
for your joylessness
for the way
you're already
at 27,
haunted by past dead ends
for your relentlessly unforgiving parents
whom you lack the spine
to face or indict
for your terror
in the face
of every challenge
and anything new
for your apparent civility
which hides
a savage anger.
You vent
on anyone
you think is stopping you
from making of yourself
the great man
your parents
have ordered you
on pain of death
to become.

You say you are a passionate student.
No.
You're a passionate grade-grubber
and not even good
at that.
If only you could
put
the passion you feel about your fancied betrayals
your bleak prophecies
into your work
into any work
into anything constructive
into anything you love
you just might have a chance
to become
the man
your parents have promised to kill you
for not becoming
instead of
the hateful drudge
the killjoy
you are.

I like to think
I can find
something
to like
in every student
I teach.
I'm still looking for
that something
in you.