Lesson Plan
The Teacher's Mask Drains
Our masks linger, even after dusk.
✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥
She pens, in calm cursive
On board pristine--
Though her hands shiver
Not from the cold.
✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥
The young ones see her face,
Sit lost in her words,
Not seeing the fear
Of scripts unmarked
Lying dormant
On her desk.
✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥
The mask guides each day--
Lessons in grit,
In weathering life's tests.
But the more it leads,
The less her voice is heard.
✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥
Dusk falls
On chairs, vacant.
Behind a desk
Pale, faceless shadow
Stays.
✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥✏️📖🪶👥
Original teacher's voice by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
For Vocal's the Masks We Wear Challenge
About the Creator
Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin
Hi, i am an English Language teacher cum freelance writer with a taste for pets, prose and poetry. When I'm not writing my heart out, I'm playing with my three dogs, Zorra, Cloudy and Snowball.
Keep reading
More stories from Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin and writers in Poets and other communities.
Standing While Falling
Quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche "He who wrestles long with monsters should beware lest he himself become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. Man is not destroyed by suffering, but by the meaning he makes of it."
By LUCCIAN LAYTH7 days ago in Critique
Comments (5)
I like your entry! I hope it wins!
💕
Very good. Thank you!❤️
This is a very gentle approach to the challenge. It's so important for us to know the struggles teachers go through that they have to hide behind poise and candour. Well written ❤️
Oooh, that ending shadow really stays with you.