#schoolwork
The alarm goes off like a fire drill in my chest,
too loud, too early,
a sound that doesn’t care if I slept
or if my brain stayed up all night
counting deadlines instead of sheep.
I lie there staring at the ceiling,
cracks shaped like maps to places I’ll never visit,
thinking about the test in third period,
the essay due at midnight,
the shift after school that ends
when the sky is already tired of being dark.
My backpack is a black hole.
I feed it papers, notebooks, hopes of free time,
and it never gets lighter.
Every class adds another weight—
formulas that blur together,
dates that refuse to stick,
teachers saying this is important
like everything isn’t already screaming for attention.
The bell rings.
It always rings.
Even when I’m not ready.
Even when my thoughts are still
tying their shoes.
In math, numbers swim on the board,
and I try to grab one, just one,
but they slip through my fingers
like I’m bad at holding onto things.
The teacher’s voice becomes background noise,
a radio left on in another room,
and I nod like I understand,
like I’m not drowning quietly at my desk.
English is better, they say,
because words are supposed to help.
But sometimes words pile up too—
rubrics, annotations, peer reviews—
and even poems feel like puzzles
I don’t have the right pieces for.
I write about themes and symbols
while my own feelings sit ungraded,
no comments, no extra credit.
Lunch is loud.
So loud.
Everyone’s talking about colleges,
about grades, about who’s failing what,
about how tired they are, as if it’s a competition.
I laugh at the right moments,
scroll through my phone,
pretend the knot in my stomach
is just hunger.
By the last bell, my head is buzzing,
but there’s no rest waiting for me.
Just an apron with my name on it,
a clock that moves too slow and too fast,
customers who don’t know—or care—
that I was up until 2 a.m.
trying to finish an assignment
worth 10% of my future.
My feet ache.
My smile aches.
I say “have a nice day”
to people who get to go home and relax,
while I count minutes like spare change,
hoping I have enough left
for homework, for sleep, for myself.
When I finally get home,
the house is quiet in that heavy way.
I drop my bag, but the weight doesn’t leave me.
It just moves inside—
behind my eyes,
into my shoulders,
around my lungs.
I open my laptop.
The screen glows like an accusation.
Missing assignments. Upcoming deadlines.
A future that feels closer and farther
at the same time.
I tell myself just one more thing,
over and over,
until “one more” becomes everything.
Sometimes I wonder
if everyone else has a secret manual
on how to balance it all—
school, work, expectations, dreams—
and I missed the day they handed it out.
Sometimes I wonder
if being tired is just who I am now.
But then there are moments—small ones—
when I finish something hard,
when a song hits just right in my headphones,
when I laugh for real,
when I remember I’m more
than my grades, my paycheck, my stress.
I’m overwhelmed, yes.
I’m stretched thin, yes.
But I’m still here,
still trying,
still waking up to that alarm
and moving forward anyway.
And maybe that counts for something.
Jan 9
Jan 9, 2026 at 3:05 PM UTC
Dizzy feeling
Staring at the ceiling
Cool and white
Could it feel my spite
Try to Speak
Words come out so bleak
Running for the door
Both feet escape the cold floor
Fresh air
To keep me from ripping out my hair
Breathing begins to quicken
I’m starting to feel sick and
Helpless once again
Go outside
Trying to hide
In the moonlight
No happiness in sight
Climbing into the pool
Feeling like such a fool
Cool, yet warm water surrounds me
I think of the sea
Begging for an answer
To stop being such a hopeless romancer
Needing a sign
Before deciding it’s time
To give it all away
No one left to beg me to stay
Needing a sign
This can’t be my time
This can’t be my last day
A shooting star says stay
I do
Didn’t have a clue
I stayed
Apr 22, 2019
Apr 22, 2019 at 10:02 AM UTC
No energy
Inside me
Trying
Honestly to figure
What it is that motivates me
I know I like to beatbox
I know I like to rap
But how do I find
The gasoline to the generator?
The generator that runs
Deep within all of us
I need it for my schoolwork
But all I feel is a dead buzz
Someone, help?
Apr 7, 2016
Apr 7, 2016 at 12:35 AM UTC
I’m from rearranged furniture
I’m from “asleep in the bathtub”
I’m from biting hands over
store-bought candy.
I’m from vinyl-white-siding,
No better at keeping in heat
Than keeping out punks,
Four guinea pigs named
“Gamber,”
And a spotted rabbit.
From searching for answers
At the bottom of a bottle,
And not stopping, to think “maybe,”
When the answers aren’t there.
I’m from thrown phones, and
Broken Home,
And diseases they have
Yet to cure.
From layoffs, to layovers, to
A car, that careened
Down the street that I lay in,
And broke the door off its frame,
Leaving an impression on
Unshakable wood.
A Golden Orb-Weaver
On a storm-door handle,
Painted purple and black,
And a blood-curdling scream.
From a run to the backyard
And irrational fears
And the accidental rhyme
Of your mask-haunted dreams
I’m from people who loved me,
Without knowing how,
And people who couldn’t,
Without saying why.
I’m from loving her, a
Little too hard, that when we finally
Broke, We both emerged.
Scarred, and scared.
Groundhogs, and rabbits, and
Cats that weren’t mine.
Being told, at times,
Simultaneous, that I’m
Less than, yet
“Above grade level.”
*I’m from baring the blunt-force,
To numbing it all out.
I’m from jazz, chess, and
Tonic water. I’m from
The Wolftones classy sound.
I’m from turning up the
Music so loud, that when
The world covered its ears,
I tried my best
To listen*
.
I’m deciding to recreate the world
As I see fit.
I’m going to do something important,
special,
Before I die.
I want to invent. An
Existence I feel more content, in.
There’s no wagon to fall off.
Just looming things,
And avoidance.
I’m deserving of the option to keep
Calling it as I see it.
Advocating character development,
And suppressing my own hamartia.
Experimenting with sobriety,
And the ending of days.
Fighting off the Great Greyness, unstoppable,
Laying down land-mines, and
Bear-traps, on the
Terrain of Winter.
*I’m going to turn the music up
Louder still,
Until protest, drowned out,
Is inseparable, from
Cheering.*
Jul 13, 2015
Jul 13, 2015 at 7:29 PM UTC
Maybe losing him was the only way I would find myself
It took everything out of me to get out of bed for months
Yet I learned that I couldn't do it by myself
I was given someone that was there for me
Able to understand my heartbreak
Because she had been heartbroken before too
He stole my confidence
My sanity
Maybe even some of the care I have for people
I barely care about myself let alone any one else
But as I threw myself into my schoolwork
My best friend sat at my side and let me cry on her shoulder
When I thought he destroyed my whole world
I was able to realize he wasn't really even apart of it
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 3:35 AM UTC
-
just another paper
that
panders to the lowest
common deNominator.
-
Sep 22, 2014
Sep 22, 2014 at 1:10 AM UTC
You tip my femininity when you scratch my back with your stubble before you shave in the mornings and it is so lovely to be near one who can cry.
You wear heavy boots with the tip of the steel toe showing to match the glint of mischief bouncing off your eyeglass frames and i stand on your toes to kiss you goodnight on my porch in the snow where you brought me oatmeal cookies to talk with you about foundations.
I don’t know if you needed help with that paper, but I certainly needed the cookies.
Jul 11, 2014
Jul 11, 2014 at 12:10 AM UTC