Another month has gone
And my cards have been drawn,
I look them over and wait
until I can feel what they say.

I've felt so overwhelmed lately,
Life can be so challenging.
It makes sense when I see
The nine of swords in front of me

I'm surrounded by triggers of anxiety,
People I want to please,
A job I intend to keep,
Time continuing on, forgetting about me.

It's stressful.
But I know things will change,
Eventually I'll flow like a jellyfish
Because the empress appeared today.

I’m toey this morning, we’re getting a test back. I was all right or all wrong. I’m early, the first one here. I’m hoping the TA will early-bird and return my test before anyone else gets here. That way, when I run and jump out the 3rd story window, no one else will be traumatized.

I’m trying to have-sac but I’m keyed-up and quivering like a ******. My chair seems all hard angles. I didn’t sleep much. My mind is replaying the test in a loop, resisting the unreliable seduction of hope. I've decided my score depends on one variable in question 3.

This semester I feel like one of those Cirque du sloeil acrobats that spin ten plates on a pole while riding a motorcycle. I realize I’m biting my fingernails and the parental voices that live in my mind spring to life. I shut them down with a shake of my head, they’ll have their say later.

Oh, great, another student’s here, Clint, I think. He’s a stengo from someplace tropical. I’ve never talked to him 1-on-1 but we were in a lab group once, where we had to synthesize a coordination complex and characterize it. He’s smart, polite, and forever chipper. He settles into his seat and slouches like he hasn’t a care in the world. I don’t like him this morning.

If he’s wrong, he’s going to have to throw himself down the stairs, I’ve got dibs on the window.

Good neighbors, sweet friends, can you forgive me?

In long, still and creeping hours of study,
I can be stern and inaccessible.

My studies tax me to basest function,
resting, weight-like, on my wretched shoulders.
I, too-weary, ebb and at times, tend to
spare few feelings and gall, as if licensed.

Sometimes I go, unwillingly to class,
a melancholy lass. Please, if we talk,
speak gently. I labor under command,
and you may not be answered with reason.

Hereby hangs the tale, ladies just and fair.
Sleep, that dark medicine, has restored me,
my sanity and my better judgment.
Patiently receive my apology
and recall our many fun adventures.

Laissez-faire and free,
Nothing bothers me in
Bohemian living.

Fruit fresh plucked,
On the grass with the bees
Relaxing and eating.

Read a play, finish a novel
See what's up with sister
See what's up with father

Laissez-faire and free,
Why are you so worried
That I'm not worrying?

the darkness deepens and slowly sighs
as it folds itself around me
envelops me in its thick
choking love
I awaken to shallow breath
and thoughts that border on madness
my sleep is no longer my escape
but rather a harbor for the remnants
of what once was a good life

I think back on my childhood.
Times that we're still good,
Before they switched it up,
Like, "Now it's time for adulthood."

Spent 18 years behind a desk,
Told to play at break,
Now life feels unrelated, and it feels like a **** waste.

It isn't useless, it just isn't right.
Train me to throw fists,
Then toss me into a knife fight.

What'd you prepare me for?
I still struggle with my taxes,
I got a degree, but it feels like I'm still stuck with all the masses.

After all these years,
It feels like I was taught wrong,
Guided down a path that my heart and soul didn't sit right on.

And every now and then
I start to fight back,
But no one likes it when you start to vary off the track.
They pushback
Like, "No, not that".
But I am not you.
So, **** that!
And I struggle but you can't see it though.
Always talk about me like I'm a lazy bloke,
Say I'm part of the lazy folk,
But your path to happiness,
Is my ******* hell road.

I think back on my childhood.
Times that we're still good...

At least, that's how it felt back then...

Rain falls in sheets for weeks,
ceiling springs a leak;
from the weeping breach
the waterline soon creeps,
stream flooding in furious
flurry of worries, deep.
Innumerable leagues beneath,
unfathomable meters and feet steep;
wrapped in the blackest and bleakest grief
wreathing my neck, I can no longer breathe.
Stifled, I can plea and scream,
but this abysmal void eats me
like a parasite, a thieving leech
suffocating, siphoning my speech,
bleeding my body weak
until all that’s left in this sea
are clothes to blow in undertow
like shredded leaves
and bones to be part of some unseen reef;
into the yawning depths of this sleep,
death swallowing every secret to keep-
I close my eyes and hold my breath for relief.