They announced it on a Monday, in our schools old sweaty hall,

That a girl I had math with wasn't coming back at all,

You could hear the silent questions, she was perfect, wasn't she?

What demons were she fighting that we were all too blind to see?

I sat in math that Monday, beside her now abandoned desk,

While our teacher warned us not to fail our fast approaching test,

I remembered she once whispered that she was envious of me,

My parents knew the work it took, just to get a simple B,

I wished I'd noticed earlier, or had the decency to ask,

Because her world must have been crumbling,

Behind her 'perfect student' mask,

And I wonder if on that Sunday, It was the last thought on her brain,

That the only A+ she could give,

Was the blood type in her veins