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