Circle A, B, C, or D. Circle True or False.

The words may as well be in a foreign language because M can't seem to make any sense of them. He stares at the exam, willing something to click, his brain to un-freeze.

Someone clears their throat and the sound pulls his attention away from the page. He glances up at the clock on the wall above the blackboard and then at the teacher in the front of the room, who sits there highlighting sentences in a text book. The felt tip squeaks as it's dragged across the paper.

M looks back at the exam before him. He adjusts his sitting position, crossing and then re-crossing his legs. He should have used the bathroom before class.

He skips a question and scans the following one. He skips that one too and moves on to the next.

M's pencil has been sharpened down to a nub, so there's hardly anything for his thumb and forefinger to hold onto. His hand cramps from the claw-like grip he's forced to use. He circles a letter then, second-guessing himself, tries to erase it, but his eraser has been rubbed flat. The metal bit on the end of the pencil shreds the paper, making the words underneath illegible.

Just as his panic begins to mount, he is startled by a sudden vibration under his seat. The person behind him is kicking the bottom rung of his chair. It starts with a gentle tap, tap, tap, but soon grows harder and more insistent.

He spins around in his seat to look at the student. A freckled girl is sitting there doodling dreamily on the back of the exam, which she has already finished.

"Young man!" M turns around again and finds the teacher hovering over his desk. The teacher has a hungry look in his eyes and spittle in the corner of his lips.

"We have a very strict policy here for cheating on exams. Cheaters will have their answers disqualified and will be given a grade of zero." Heads at neighboring desks jerk upwards and turn in the direction of the disruption. M feels his face and ears and neck grow poker hot, but he can't seem to string any words together, his mind numb with shock and shame.

His gaze still fixed on M, the teacher grabs the exam and tears it clean in two.

Darkness rules coldly

Across the inky blight

Only moon and stars

Echo a milky light

Soon the sun will rise

Pushing darkness away

Birds will start their song

Lighting the torch of day

Black gives way to blue

In a pastel pink sky

Daily toils start

And the sun marches high

Till its peak is met

Atop a busy fray

From the zenith throne

Sun descends giving way

And dark bleeds into

A day no longer strong

The lowering sun

Casts shadows stark and long

Merging the umbra

Beneath a starry swath

Shaded below night

Some shall fear, blind as Hoth

Some thrive free of light

There is time for both

Passing by the minute

Forging the circle

With power infinite

Flecks of light reflected in her eyes,

the blaze danced in a fiery rage;

encircled in a torrent of heat

she gazed up at the black sky as it

blinked impassively,

the inferno welcomed her into its

embrace.

Circle;

That is what you leave in my heart.

A tiny dot of pleasant warmth;

Which grows larger and hotter with each passing day.

Circle;

That is the shape my mouth makes,

When you tell a bad joke,

Or make a bad gaffe.

Circle;

The shape of my eyes,

As I watch you walk away,

Or watch you just being you.

Circle;

The essence of the wheel of time.

Turning here and there;

Taking all of life on an endless journey.

By: Katryese Austin