Lights flicker in the light blue room my desk occupies, it's friday night again and I'm alone studying in this dim, tiny room. 8 PM. Eyes lazily move over to the dirty orange folder on my right that holds my grade and my future to be built... but I don't feel good, i'm not feeling right... thighs feel like sandbags, eyelids are like factory doors at the end of a conveyor belt. Skin is cracked and hardened in places, hair feels like wheat beneath my fingers (as my hair gel had hardened into its shape days ago, I haven't the time to soak myself). Every breath is a breath of air, but every yawn just pulls me below the tide a little more...
In the faint light of this interactive screen, I reach over to my right and pick up the punctured inhaler of dramenthol, the focus drug; the bowl's burning so low now that I could barely find it and bring it to my lips taking a long inhale hoping it'll give me some enthusiasm to finish this paper... so odd that we still call them papers isn't it? It's like records.
There's always that initial bit of paranoia after every huff and puff of the stuff, a bygone muscle response from the days before legality was no longer a question. Every time, for a split second it brings back the old paranoia, the old fears, in that split second, unrelated to the drug I remember the fear of being found. That fear of men in blue and grey, that fear of prison and all the torturous details and experiences thoughts of it can entail...
But that split second fades away shortly before the glow of the embers, but not before I see the smoke drifting up from below my field of vision. Warm steam in my lungs, warm steam in my mouth, sometimes it finds its way to my nose... all medication, all for me.
But again I've lost myself haven't I? I've forgotten that paper, I've forgotten my future, my future responsibilities... nothing ever really helps this, but you fool yourself into thinking you can through motivational posters, fluffy ads for focus inhalers and the kind words of the men you pay to let you stay and "learn"... My mind's all messy,
I need to get outside for once.
But this paper is due,
and...
I forget...
Where did all that time go?
-A Publicly posted thought from the kid in Dorm Closet 28B, posted 8/21/2043
