A girl in an oversized jumper and woolen socks
Regards the sea of crumpled up notes in biro scrawl
From islands of textbooks vandalized by students past.
With zero human company and plenty of caffeine
She is surrounded by neon highlighters drained of their color,
Rainbow flashcards, silver wrappers
Empty of dark chocolate.
Her collapsed topknot spills over her face
As she glares into the computer’s glow,
the sporadic cursor mocks her lack of progress.
This is hell.
The temptation for sweet relief-
A spot of procrastination-
Proves too much. She sacrifices promised long hours
Of hard work and doodles notebooks
With crushes’ names and coils of flowers;
She needs to escape her academic prison,
To not dredge up historical dates and the periodical table,
Or memorize algebra formulas and rock formations,
Before her sanity is lost forever.
It’s been so long.
She enters wonderland
Freefalls down the rabbit’s hole of fantasy
Illuminated by her musings and pipedreams.
She revels in the hypnotic glow:
Of the fantastic adventures;
Of explorations of curse tombs,
Forbidden romances in a Baroque chateau,
Or mysteries in London’s streets.
Her tired eyes then drift closed
As she curls up into the luxury of sleep.
Drooling on her pencil case pillow.
