My Professor told me to leave his class room.
I lifted my bowed head
“Huh?”

"Leave my classroom",
he said.
“I don’t tolerate
tweeting, texting,
snapping, sexting,
in my lectures.
So if you’re going to be on your phone
be on your phone elsewhere.”

I didn’t have the energy to rebuttal
“Professor Hughes, I wasn’t looking at my phone.”
I simply did as I was asked
and left.

Funny how my head was bowed
because I was looking down
at the scars I carved into my wrists
this morning
laying in bed
eyes opened
body still
demons anchoring my chest
feeling pressed into my mattress
mumbling through the paralysis
“I have to go to class today
I can’t skip again”
“But your bed is so warm
and you’re a ******* anyway”
my depression taunted
“If you would have just swallowed that bottle of pills
last night like I told you
we wouldn’t be in this mess”

As I’m walking back to my dorm,
the parallel of last night
and this morning
smacks me like a wooden bat to the back:
Life is like a college class;
you don’t always want to be a part of it,
yet alone participate.
Sometimes just showing up
is all you can muster up that day.
And you might do something or even nothing
and someone who doesn’t like that something or nothing
will come up to you and say,
why don’t you just leave?

And you may not have the energy to disagree.