Classes started up again today. Soon, we’ll be gloriously stressed, and clocked-up on whatever. Our hearts will swell to the pre-med symphony - a frantic opus, composed in the key of no sleep.

In seminars for rising pre-med seniors, (What's needed to get that med-school slot!), it’s obvious that 60% of the students who started out with us, on this track, are gone - left for other majors.
“I wasn’t happy, it was too much,” they said.

I feel a pang when I hear that undergrads we’ve shared a trench with have switched their major to basket weaving (political science), TikTok (computer science) or Phys-Ed.

I envy those deserters, I pity those deserters, I envy.. Wait, aren’t deserters supposed to be, well, you know.

Meanwhile, the rest of us, the stubborn few, cling to the dream. It’s a waking dream, for caffeinated zombies, obsessive-compulsive workaholics and maladjusted wonks who neglect personal needs, relationships and in some cases personal hygiene (not me, of course) in favor of a goal.

Maybe there’s something wrong with us?

What choices would I change if I started from anew?
What lessons from my life to change to see another view?

Would I make the same mistakes or choose another way?
Would I speak out just as loud at the times I had my say?

How would I react to the things I've seen men do?
Could I hope to be braver and help those it was done to?

Would I choose to stand when I saw the need to fight?
Would I still see the same things I do now as being right?

Would I still choose to hurt those I caused pain to?
Knowing that the choice once made is impossible to undo.

I know I cannot go back and do it all over from the start,
but if I did it all again, I would live it with a bigger heart.

Forty yards from Haribo Heaven,
They took flight,
Mocking the clouds of traffic:
Faster and faster,
Faster and looser,  
Faster and freer.

But then the Saxon ground
Came out in revolt,
Saying
Their covenant with gravity had been violated.

All sound was muted.

Heads struck at thirty-three yards;
Backs cracked the soil at thirty.
In his heart,
It was her finger that he felt,
Arching over the G string of her violin,
Like the neck of a flamingo.  

He mused:
After the sound came back,
Would she play a gigue or a dirge
To accompany
This ignominious moment?

When her sullied, muddied, mossy eyes looked away from him,
To her, had he become a lesser man?

Faster and faster
Faster and looser.

Had she now glimpsed a father’s struggle
To piece together what he thought he knew?

Somedays, I’ll be dancing in my living room to The Cure,
and suddenly, my chest will collapse in on itself, a demolition of all the memories of  the year I shared with you.  I was the city putting out the notice, this old building with a weak foundation needed to come down.
And I cry.
And suddenly , I fee stupid, I’m crying alone with a glass of wine while Just Like Heaven is playing. It wasn’t even our song.
It’s time to rebuild.
The city is under development,
Alexa, replay Just Like Heaven by The Cure.

I can't remember what its like
To get to know someone.
Tricky to trust that
Guys gazing
tell truths.
Pretty words have never mattered.
I knew to ignore them,
But now I fear them.
Where did the process go?
Were there steps to this
that I simply forgot?
Or was I too free with all of me
And that's why I got hurt?

Broke my heart open to shed a new light,
Freedom seeks me,
But fright latched on,
Victim of a crime,
but charged like a prisoner.
Your love is cheap,
your love was fraud.
Deception was the objective.
Emptiness, sadness and desperation had long departed.
The mind had been lost,
the heart had been shattered,
Pieces had been forgotten.
Trampled on, like a stampede in a zoo
All kinds of creatures,
beautiful, fierce, and over seen.
Lies, manipulation, and regrets...
Was it all for nothing?
Stronger than before,
but weaker by default.
In need of saving in this never ending tribulations.
Definition of seeking obstacles.
A soul's greatest desire,
but the heart's wont comply.
A friend, and a foe...
A walking paradox.