I sit exhausted every night
Not a single off day in my sights
Working as I wake up, and until I dose off
So busy, my dehydration is discovered by a dry cough

To busy to eat, yet too hungry to carry on
Taking even a little break causes progress to be gone
Disappeared are the days of weekends being a reprieve
As I wipe the tears and carry on by rolling up my sleeves

Some call it growing up, others call it existing
Here I am throwing up, unware of how exhausting
this all truly is
The human body was made for pressure, yet I cannot reassure
If I am tired out of hard work, or hardly getting things to work

The weapons must have succeeded, the attacks seem to have landed
Stuck in this workflow I feel stranded, and yet life has still demanded
I wake up and smile, and sleep with the same expression
Is this depression, a lesson, or a trial for heaven?

Sitting down is wasting time, and working with no success is just as worse
Is this a challenge set before me, or some invisible curse
Time and time again, clocking in and clocking out
I sit still, letting it boil, as all I want to do is shout

Everything’s been frantic since the break.
What people don’t tell you about college,
is that you’re just tired ALL of the time.
I’m so tired, yawn ‘scuse me.
So if you’re planning to talk to me, bring coffee, make
some effort to be interesting - clap your hands or.. something.

Work piled up on me while I was sick (I missed two days!)
and it radiated across my.. everything, like nuclear waste.
In New Haven, you have the inalienable right to fall behind.

ok, let’s put it poetically..

The microorganism was as fast and brutal as a twister
and it spun, tricksily, out of a clear blue day
leaving me weak, in shock and totally focked.

I needed things that come after a natural disaster
- wailing sirens, to clear the way for organized relief
but no volunteers can help me pick-up the pieces.

I guess I needed another challenge this term.
Sure, my roommates check in, but they have their own traumas
and they’re like those slow, drive-by accident-tourists that gawk.
Too bad there’s no such thing as missed class/assignment insurance.

There’s a saying (cleaned up), here at Yale, that goes:
It’ll get done because it HAS to get done.

We’re (my roommates and I) at a specific time of youth - a time I’ll call “close.” We aren’t fully adults but we’re close, we’re not completely out and independent, but we’re close. And once again, we’ve got choices to make.

I read this paragraph to the room.
Lisa gasped and exclaimed “Not choices?!”
“More choices?” Anna groaned.
“I’ll have a bacon-cheeseburger with large-fries,” Sophy said, adding, “and a blueberry-triple-malt shake.”
“Freedom is choices,” Leong, our favorite communist, ungrammatically observed.

We’re in the second half of our junior year - which is still hard to believe. We’ll be seniors soon, and seniors have one foot out the door - they’re ‘over the ****’ academically - nothing will be thrown at them that they can’t casually handle, so they sleep-in or trek off to job interviews half the time or in my case, go med-school hunting.

I’ve written about our lives - the stresses, healthy doses of narrative-suffused teen drama, the ascetic beauties and the enchantments of freedom - trying to capture a few real-life moments at irregular intervals, in small ellipses, to tack them, like butterflies on cork.

What’s been hard to capture are the subtler shifts in taste and mood as we’ve aged. I’ve had to purposefully slow down, doppler shift from frantic student to observant writer, to even try and grasp the constantly evolving, small variations. Like Anna’s cainogenetic expressiveness, Leong's imponderable politics, Sophy’s evolving, coquettish bar-side poses and the growing assertiveness of Lisa’s gaze.

As we mentally prepare for our real lives, there are diffuse metamorphic changes afoot. What will we leave behind and what will we keep in order to “grow up?” I don’t mean changes in haircuts, clothes and make-up - although I’m sure I’ll MCU-those-out - I mean the psychological changes.

Throughout our college careers, the objects we’ve surrounded ourselves with, the settings we’ve chosen to inhabit, the faces we’ve shown the world, and even our intimate notions of ourselves have changed.

And It’s still only junior year, I can’t wait to see what comes next.

I’m a tightrope walker, strung between
the hedonistic abyss of winter break and
the unforgiving canyon of organic chemistry.

The stack of spring syllabuses are a prophecy whispered
in Latin. The story they tell haunts my dreams - wherein
each biochemical is a monster lurking in the shadows.

“I’m not in a tailspin, that would be unfair,” I tell Lisa, “I’m in a lull.”
“It’s like that awkward time, between a hangover and drinking again.” she laughs.

Sure, I envisage late, week night study grinds, and sleepless
hours, but the price of serious things isn’t trivial - success and hard
work are, unfortunately, yoked together, like Shakespeare’s double shadow.

A tough spring curriculum won’t stop me from
taking 3 or 4 minutes to dance with roomates
when a head-banger like ‘Spiral City’ plays or
enjoying sudden, late night jelly bean melees.

And then there are the spring things that spark joy.
Walking to class on a brilliant spring morning,
with birdsong, a warm sun and fragrant breezes.

Laughs stolen in the back of classes,
gossip and secrets exchanged over
guilty coffee and croissant indulgences.

Skipping through crowded halls, drawing looks
‘cause we’re clapping aggressively to each other, singin’
“You got the swag sauce, she dripping swagu, ooh!”

“Ok,” I think to myself, putting my hair in a ponytail,
“I’m ready for spring semester - bring it on.”

I drew stick figures
things were simple

in a pencil world
mistakes were erased
you could start over

but an inchmeal awareness nagged
- the sky isn’t gray, it’s a liquid blue

but crayons were complicated
you couldn’t erase things
mistakes were irrevocable.

and there were 148 colors in the big box
keeping them in rainbow order was work.

growing up is hard

It all starts with an idea, that you can
Feelings come between now and then
Thoughts come running through your head
All the time is ripened for what could be said
Then it takes what was yours
It just breaks all your core
And you'll never know why
You gave in just for more
All the sights and the sores
Painful cries as they court
And you'll never know why
You take in, lust yet torn

Sometimes I fear the feeling of contentment
Of completion and accomplishment
Because afterwards I'll never know
If the passion dies, or if I'll still grow
Then it stops what you start
It just drops from the heart
And you'll never take back
What you gave just for art
All the lies and the lores
Faithful eyes now they tore
And you'll never know why
As you come back for more

And it starts as it the ends
The idea that you can't
As you say one goodnight
The last of all goodbyes
To the brush, to your pen
To all books that you've read
To the lovers that come
To the letters you've read
As you'll never come back
To create, you just can't
One last time, one last sigh
Close your eyes, one last breath
All the doors closing in
Right where we all begin

Our dreams come pure with uncertainty
When all doors are closed as answers can be
When everyone has turned their back on you
While the chance is null and you have no clue
That dream you have is yours alone
It only comes once, yet with you it's grown
It all starts with an idea, that you can
You were passionate once, embrace dreams once again

Burns Creek
Climbing Chimney Rock.
Dad and David Scoville
In their mid 30s,
Two men out to prove
Their bravery,
Their derring-do.

Nervous,
My Mother,
My brother and I,
Five and six,
Necks craning,
Wait and watch;
Dad moves up and up
Clings to the top.

Inept and six,
I stand below,
Admiring my Father's
Fearlessness.

I am nearly blind,
The myopic, thick-lensed gawker,
Peering upward.

The men climb down,
Victorious,
The day’s challenges
Vanquished.

Heading home,
Choking dust.
Old land,
Deep ravines,
Rattle snake domain.

My father's old Ford
Bumps over red scoria,
Billows burning dust.

Ancient land,
Cindered clay,
Open grazing land,
Dry and hot.

Memories churn
From sixty years ago.

Why?
Because every memory is still beautiful!
Even when intentions of actions were unkind.
For these burning fires have birthed
My greatest strengths.
Thank you for all you have done.
Our roles at the close of the last act, complete.
Watching as the curtain closes
Shedding the glove, we call a body
We return to the Light from which we came.