Poetic Paragraphs

Maze

I'm back in the maze again, surrounded by walls of papers, standing on floors of essays, kicking used-up pens and broken pencils out of the way.

I don't want to be here.

Last year, I'd barely found my way out. I remember tripping over final exams, red ink slashing through my grades, watching security bleed from falling percentages as points drained from my GPA.

I can still feel the burn of running until there was nothing left, until my legs broke beneath me. But then a teacher's pen hovered near a borderline grade and I pushed myself onto fractured feet and ran.

That year spat me onto sunkissed pavement, chewed out and fed up, back outside the maze for a few months for my feet to heal and my head to stop spinning.

It didn't work.

I'm standing here in the maze, and my feet tingle with a phantom ache. My head's twirling with leftover vertigo that hasn't gone away.

Because I pushed myself too hard, and sometimes things don't bend.

They break.

But I'm not broken, just injured, and I've run before. I'll run again.

I'll walk through this place and face the horrors and the surprises with an open mind.

I take a step forward, suddenly screaming, falling, feeling my body twist in the air as I plummet through the trapdoor of a pop quiz.

Landing heavily, I try to scrabble my way up from the darkness, illuminate my way out with the right answers, but I forgot to prepare a cushion to catch me, a ladder of knowledge to climb out of this mess.

So I wait for someone to let me out, paving my escape with red ink and falling grades, knowing I'm digging a deeper hole with every point I miss.

I'm walking six tightropes of converging and diverging knowledge, and I'm scared of falling.

Because sometimes the weak ink of my chewed-through pens isn't enough to write me a lifeline when I'm drowning. So I fall from one class and trip over another, tumbling, stumbling, trying to catch myself on grades that give out beneath my feet.

There are too many trapdoors in this maze, jumpscares waiting to leap from around the corner, and the madman of procrastination chases me during the working hours and only falls asleep at night.

So I do my homework during the dark, feeling the sun creep up over the horizon, trying to figure out how to get to the end of the maze with falling.

If I stay still too long, vines of ignorance creep over my feet, pinning them down, forcing me to stay stationary until I pull up the energy or fear to break loose and chase after success again.

Multicolored highlighters point out tricks in the maze, things to remember, helpful hints on how to escape with only a few scratches instead of scars.

Flashcards form gateways to knowledge I'd buried before, letting me dig it up when I need it.

I gather a personal arsenal to tuck into my backpack so the next time I fall through a trapdoor, I'm ready.

I'll battle my scantrons with logic and knowledge, and the answers will fall before my feet, letting me through without harm.

I know I'll still trip.

I always do.

I'm careless, forgetful, and sometimes I let things fall or don't even pick them up at all. It's hard to find the important words when you're scrabbling through mountains of them.

So I'll forget, or maybe never knew the information. But it's not too late to kneel down and pick it up, store it away for the next time I need it.

If I lose sight of the end of this maze, I'll find it.

I keep running on sore feet and a swirling head, sprinting through the nights, because success is on the other side of this maze.

I just need to keep going.

I just need to keep bending and running and tripping and falling, because one day, I'll be spit out on that sun-kissed pavement for the last time, and I'll get to see the sky.

It won't be over then, but it's the start of something new.

And after twelve years in a morphing maze, maybe something new is good. 

++++

(Apparently school started for some of you! Good luck!)