my outburst in english class

It was last Thursday,
I'd just gotten out of listening
To these veterans talk about their
War experiences in the library and
During that whole thing, I was
Listening so hard;
I believe that was the cause of my
Outburst, how hard I payed
Attention.
I heard their stories and they were
Fresh in my mind
As I took my seat at the back of Ms. Harty's
Room, with all of the desks facing towards the
Middle
And I felt in the center of the room,
Tom Cardone and I,
And something came over me.
I wanted to talk.
I wanted to say something and stop
Disagreeing with the opinions of other people
To myself, in my head.
I just wanted to say something.
I couldn't sit in the back of the class and
Digest all this depressing literature
Ms. Harty makes us read
Without vocalizing it any longer.
So as Mia and the rest of her group
Discussed how the parents were left out
Of A Separate Peace,
One of those questions Ms. Harty sits around
And concocts during her spare time
To confuse us all,
All these profound ideas flooded my brain.
And I wanted to voice them.
I rambled on and stuttered about how absent
They were from their children's lives and how
They couldn't begin to understand their personal
Conflicts and the fight between Gene and Finny
And why would anyone want to send their kid to
A boarding school if he'd turn into someone
You don't even know anymore
And all of this other intense symbolism
I kept coming up with.
And my hand kept shooting in the air
And Mia kept calling on me
And I was giggling in shock
Of all this surging intelligence
And I just kept going on about all this
Genius/nonsense and I kept talking
And Ms. Harty had this strange look on her face
And I couldn't even listen to what anyone else
Was saying, just what I kept blurting out,
Sometimes just weird parts of sentences that
I couldn't string together and finally
Class was over and Ms. Harty told me,
"Good job today."
And I felt exhausted from all that talking
In Latin and by Math
I was just cold because of the horrible
Draft coming from Sister Louise's open window
To my left
And the unpleasant sound of wind whistling through
The trees by the football field.

It was the strangest thing,
All this knowledge, fleeting but there at the time,
I felt for 50 minutes I could have understood
Anything anyone asked of me ever.
I don't think I will ever participate like that again,
I know Ms. Harty probably dreams about me
Doing this all over again,
Questioning all her deep set opinions on
The same dreary books she's been
Teaching for decades,
But I'm not sure that I have it in me.

Who knows though, maybe that feeling will
Revisit me sometime.

I've been surprising myself a lot lately.