Forcing a Poet

Loryn, forced, but makes her own mind up.

I like to teach. For example, starting when Olivia was about five, (back in the good ol' days when she lived with us), I would play school. But I really threw my heart into it. Transforming the spare bedroom into a classroom, I spent all my nickels and dimes on teacher material, like posters and charts, to clutter the walls. Then everyday I would pretend that my red wagon was a school bus and go to her back door to "pick her up". We did science experiments, math games, spelling words, you know, school. I even planned the day ahead of time. I thought she really liked it but, getting a little older, she developed a mind of her own. (which isn't always a bad thing). When she was five, and I was seven, she had no choice. I forced her to allow me to teach her. But when she turned eight, and I ten, she simply refused to play school. She hated me teaching her. I mean, she hated it so much, she would run in the other direction if I mentioned teaching her in a sentence. That made me really upset. I took down the posters, the homemade math games, and handwritten assignments, and left the walls bare and ugly- to me at least. Then, I forgot about teaching until she left and Loryn came to live with us. One summer day, when the two of us were sitting on the front porch with not a thing to do, she asked me if I'd teach her. She WANTED me to teach her! I jumped up, ran to get my hidden-away posters, and taught taught taught. I did this for the longest of times until I hit highschool. Things got busy  and when she'd ask, I'd tell her to wait till I was done with my homework, which kept me up til' midnight. I forgot about teaching. UNTIL today. For some reason, I got a teaching "second-wind". I begged Loryn to play school with me, but this time wasn't like the other days. I decided to teach her how to write a poem, but she wouldn't cooperate. So I was forcing her to write a poem. "Write about anything!" I'd say, but when she wrote nothing on her paper, I would tell her, "Write about the lightbulb, that base-ball, heck, write about me forcing you to write a poem! Just PLEASE put words on your paper! Write!" After hours of begging, and blank- stares, she told me she was done with school. It bored her. That she didn't want to play anymore, ever again. Fini.
I was the one who taught her how to write her name, say the alphabet, count to ten in french. And now she got a mind of her own, too.
It scares me.