Q-What do you do when your middle-schooler tells his parents he has had it with school?

A- Invite him into your bed and take turns reading poetry, of course.

Turns out, he has a whole other life mapped out. And, he's ready to go to it. Moving the whole family and all. I listened.

"Here's how you can help, Mom. Here's how school is of no help. Here's the type of school I should be at." All the while taking turns at random poetry selection wherever the book opened up.

The poems were read with surprising amounts of expression. Dad brought him liquid Nyquil, then water, even though there is no drinking in our bed. Sister faded along with her Ricola cough drop quietly listening from a rocker chair. All the while, the feverish chatter went on between poems.

I laughed and had great empathy all at the same time. Dad quietly established his sleeping spot and read his paperback.

The soul had to be heard last night. And, it had risen up in that little body. Triggered by the non-sense of school. "Like family, can't you see, school makes no sense at all! Can't you see I am ready to be all of me right now? "

There is no easy answer to such a call of a boy's soul rising up. So, poetry was just as good as any.