Quietly Reading Nietzsche While I Sit at My Desk in the Back of the Room and Watch Students Take a Standardized Test

There is always, of course,

the admonition to be

one's self. And then there is

the addressing of such insights
as the will to power, and amor fati,

and of course eternal recurrence,

and the Ubermensch, and destruction-and-rebirth.

Mountaintop views interspersed

with descents into hell,
and back, and forth, and back,

and back, and forth. (And I haven't

even mentioned yet the unfortunate infamy

of our inevitable role played

in the untimely death of God.)

Because it's a lot to think about--

a lot to take in, after all. Too much

for the likes of their young egos,

concerned as they are today with

completely filling in the ovals of their choice, 

careful to erase any human error,

careful not to leave any stray marks.