Deprivation of Everything, and Nothing.

Daylight caresses condensation-sodden windows,
wiping the dreams from my eyes with her unabashed
glow of opportunity—a new day trumpeting in
with every last ray and glare of her familiar arms.

Three hours.
Even when I’ve only closed my weary eyes
for three too-brief hours, I can’t bear to miss one moment of
my eight a.m. class, to load up on my 24 oz.
of hyper-caffeinated coffee to argue rhetoric
over the murmuring of lazy drainages on
“mommy and daddy’s college fund”
complaining it doesn’t make a difference either way—
hoping to fit in with the other generic, mass-produced
over-complacent privilegeds.

Even turning the pages of dry textbooks I’ve already mastered,
even with last night’s beer-smudged memories plaguing
my attention span and nagging at my reflexes to
simple questions—this is what I couldn’t live without.

So I wander the halls of this tiny campus evaluating
the faces that pass, all trying to be something, to fit in somewhere;
huddling in corners praying their make-up
properly mimics last week’s “Vogue” and  blinking thrice
at that blond-haired boy that’s never even paused in return;
and none of their triviality and blatant insulting of education
and sophistication can tarnish the fact that I’d have killed
to be standing on this very brick holding any which textbook—
gleaming all over inside.

And the hours of study and growling stomach,
and fretting over rent, and rationing my two-month-old
Raisin bran [the only food left in my bare cupboards]
melt away with the second hands on my bartered clock
until waitressing for meager tips finally beckons my name.
[I’d say, the going rate for my service is one penny per drop of sweat
glazing my undershirt to clammy skin—if they’re generous!]
And, it doesn’t even matter the condescension and patronizing
slave status I degrade myself to, so long as the camaraderie 
betwixt my fellow underlings and me is ever strengthened.

Finally, after appeasing the masses with plastic smiles
and porcelain plates,
I wait for the four words…

[Anyone for a party?]

And no nine a.m. class, nor 7 a.m. work,
nor 6 a.m. volleyball tournaments
can suppress the yearning in me
to let go of it all in reward—if only for one hour.

because only I know that even when I’ve only closed my weary eyes
for three too-brief hours, I can’t bear to miss a moment of
my eight a.m. class, to load up on my 24 oz.
of hyper-caffeinated coffee to argue rhetoric
over the murmuring of lazy drainages on
“mommy and daddy’s college fund;”
only I know that I couldn’t have it any other way.