April PAD: Day 9 "Welcome To High School"

Today's Prompt: For today's prompt, I want you write a poem about a memory. The memory can be good or bad. The memory can be a blend of several memories. I suppose it could even be a memory that you're not sure you remember correctly. Take your time finding a good one (or good ones).

Welcome to High School

Tenth grade
Right after lunch
we enter the room
for an hour of intense learning

What I remember most
is that feeling
on the first day of class
when our teacher said
our tests would be
open notes

I can't recall
but I must have smiled
if only to myself

The notes I took
all year long
were thorough, quite complete

and yet

as I sat
in that same chair
looking down
at each exam
the memory
of my inner smile
of my naive joy
rushed back to me
and the fear plunged deeper
as I realized
again and again
that it's only open notes
because it didn't really help