I think about your flowchart a lot.
An option for every combination
Of grades – all redundant, in the end
Because you got your firm choice.
I think about results day sometimes,
The way you came into our room
At five in the morning, so excited
To see what you’d got. Saying
Suck it to your teacher (but I can’t
remember his name). Suck it, I got an A.
I think about the advice you gave me,
Take Decisions and Stats, they’re easy as shit
And they’ll bring your grade up. How right
You were, though now we don’t get to choose.
I think about you, sat in the window,
In a grey hoodie, desperately ringing the uni –
I want to defer, I’m going to Tanzania. I think about how
Far away those problems seemed –
You were all adults, going to uni,
And I still had half my school in front of me.
I’m as old as you were then, now.
But I still feel like a child –
Has it truly been five years?