Junior Year

Perpetually pushed into pushing pencil

Stencils

Cookie cut clones

We are

Strive far, they tell me, but by far I’ve underachieved

Under-conceived my future

Wasted my past

Many places I’ve passed without stopping

Aimlessly walking while getting chased by faces all too familiar

Underclassmen gawking

The underclass hawking up phlegm

Under my feet

Well in front of them, rather,

Terrified because these faces are beginning to look more like me

I stagger

Words blur as I read with absurd verve what knowledge hawkers mistake for art

Yet I’m partial to what artists choose to embark on

At least that’s until the sparks gone

Defused by prophesizing professors and criticizing critics

Who inhibit what an artist may exhibit as self expression

Our economy feeds off our depression

Pop a pill and your poison tasting leads to a vacation away from

The reality they’ve built for you

Poor you

But rich them

Enrich dimwitted college kids with 1500 dollar an hour nap times

Three years and I’ve actually gotten dumber

Relapse time to an earlier point before adulthood sets in

Before time itself felt like a rope my necks in

Before leisure time became stressin’

Because, obviously, there may have been something more constructive to do.

Like . . .

Learn.

Vexing this concept of life and quality

And how they intertwine false expectations of sublime happiness

Could use some divine help

But I’m blind to the good in that ‘cause I was whipped by hypocrites

Stripped of this . . .

This passion that I’ve been asking to have revived

And it’s not until I’m off task that I realize I have quite a few things to evaluate.