PRESENT PERFECT By the Kids in Room 2

After being out sick for a day, I returned to Room 2 to find this poem along with a note from the sub about how incorrigible the class was. I think the note and the poem cancel each other out in some cosmic way. Before my absence I'd been struggling to teach the present perfect tense, assuming I had failed. But apparently not. The poem is written in the present perfect progressive, a variation on the tense I never mentioned. Nonetheless,  the class figured out it was "perfect" for this particular poem. The kids tell me each student contributed a line or two, and Alex takes credit for spearheading and editing the project. - Robyn

We’ve been lost.

We’ve been gay.

We’ve been controlled.

We’ve been bored.

Nothin’ to DO.

We’ve been cheated.

We’ve been crazy.

We’ve been growing armpit hair.

We’ve been eaten.

We’ve been fat.

We’ve been killing.

We’ve been dead.

We’ve been killed.

We’ve been starving.

We’ve been hungry.

We’ve been hurt.

We’ve been abused.

We’ve been controlling.

We’ve been in misery.

We’ve been miserable.

We’ve been paralyzed.

We’ve been staring.

We’ve been bullied.

We’ve been littering our lives.

We’ve been sacrificing them.
We’ve

been

nothing.