at the end of the tunnel my heart trembles,
overwhelmed by waves of telephone rings,
unexecuted promises, ecstasy of a newfound soul
but the threat of a fragile thread, i try to
breathe but the air goes nowhere, and then i
look, mama, the henna on my hand is fading away
i sigh at the inevitability of things, all of this reality
does not feel like reality, we are all in the last stretch
of our escape, i see the light at the end of the dark
ness, but why does it feel like i’m simply standing
still waiting to be kept in another cage. darling,
darling, my henna is wearing thin. i want out,
i want freedom, i want love, i want this anxiety
to fade away like the lovely patterns quickly wearing
thin, thin, thin, to match the colour of my skin.

'Hold it together';
Says the voice in my head.
But my brain is burning
And rotting in dread.

'Stay steady, and grounded';
They tell me once more.
But I'm frozen in worry
Of thoughts that scorn.

'Concentrate now';
They shout quite loud.
As I walk back and forth
Inside this house.

My lungs have no air,
Yet I'm breathing just fine.
'This won't last long';

And neither will I.

Like a window smashed,
waxing accidental cracking of glass;
canyons mapped as light refracts fast,
captured through snapping fragments and gaps.
Hung unintact, procrastinating its shattered collapse,
stress tracks have the last laugh
as paths from impact form webs and traps.
Gilded, a net of gold wraps as fractured attack grasps
before being scattered and blackened to an abstract mass of countless unmatching halves.
Tangled, travelling passions cast into a savagely scratched mask;
mouth closed, asphyxiated, and afraid to gasp.

My mind is dying,
And I with it too.
Thinking is tiring,
I'm empty of fuel.
From working in jobs,
To studies in school.
From speaking with others,
Then losing my cool.

My body is weary,
My brain on fire.
But alas,
I give in.

For I am just too tired.

The world around me has become so loud,
Drowning out the sound of my existence,
As if I don’t exist at all.
I’m still there,
Ripples in the puddles I drown in,
Whispers of wind through trees I fall from,
A rotten fruit.
I’m hidden somewhere in the Earth,
Suffocating beneath the weight of the soil and my memories.
I don’t want them to go away,
I don’t want the pain of the past to leave me,
But it’s running down my legs,
A thick red liquid,
It’s infecting my dreams,
Smothering me with smoke.
I need it to be quiet,
Let me breathe.
The dull ache I’ve spent a lifetime keeping at bay,
Chained deep within my brain,
Rising to the surface,
Screeching along its tracks as it careens towards me.
I feel so small,
So fragile,
So weak.
I can’t hear myself think.

Monday night my head spins
Reality and fiction sunken in
Sugar rush tires me but keeps me
Awake, I whirl in everlasting anxiety
I am panicking, how much time do we have
Left, something’s not
Right, my brain is shutting
Down, deeper into knots of
Self-doubt as if someone enabled
Occlusion culling, why can’t I see?
What’s in store for me? I can’t?
See what? Is in front of me?

Classes started up again today. Soon, we’ll be gloriously stressed, and clocked-up on whatever. Our hearts will swell to the pre-med symphony - a frantic opus, composed in the key of no sleep.

In seminars for rising pre-med seniors, (What's needed to get that med-school slot!), it’s obvious that 60% of the students who started out with us, on this track, are gone - left for other majors.
“I wasn’t happy, it was too much,” they said.

I feel a pang when I hear that undergrads we’ve shared a trench with have switched their major to basket weaving (political science), TikTok (computer science) or Phys-Ed.

I envy those deserters, I pity those deserters, I envy.. Wait, aren’t deserters supposed to be, well, you know.

Meanwhile, the rest of us, the stubborn few, cling to the dream. It’s a waking dream, for caffeinated zombies, obsessive-compulsive workaholics and maladjusted wonks who neglect personal needs, relationships and in some cases personal hygiene (not me, of course) in favor of a goal.

Maybe there’s something wrong with us?