Academia Deranged

I’m getting sick of this

Staying up ‘til 2.

No sleep, no peace, no resilience

No place of nothingness where I can rest, far away from the strict numbers

And the masses and their laws and flaws and claws

Coming to scratch my brains out

All numbered, all accounted for, all pointless.

A flit of paperwork in a heavy white pulpstorm

That won’t stop beating papercuts over my head.

First I’m a frog.

This’ll be a joke

I’ll lick it up like a fly and it’ll be done with

Then I’m a butterfly

Maybe it’s not so easy

Maybe if I just take a break and do something else.

Later, after it’s too late,

I’m an owl.

My faith returned, caffeine pumping strong in my veins,

I’ll stay awake as long as I have to.

I’m too smart and diligent to let it get the best of me.

Hours later, I’m sleepless

A dreary grey raccoon,

Eyes bloodshot, I don’t care anymore

Whether or not I go to college

A good life just isn’t worth this hell.

Maybe I can use my limited knowledge to

Transform a few reactants into arsenic.

…but I’m too tired to go to all that trouble

so I go to sleep, and hope I never wake up tomorrow.

Though I always do,

To a needy bit of brain-death

Which is only partly new,

And suspended disbelief with blind faith in

The future… a future of six more years which I’m suddenly not

Looking forward to anymore…