Woke up with my alarm clock screaming at me
“Time to face your fear!”
Put on a hoodie and grabbed my soul
With sweaty palms as I went downstairs.
and snatched my face awakening me
to the essay I hadn’t written
Goosebump bugs crawling over my body
from the tongue in my mouth I had bitten.
My ears blasting music out the window
Of my dad’s crazy speeding car
I blink, we’re there, my startled eyeballs roll
Spinning on the blue and red lights flashing
On the lifelike dolls lying outside the school door.
Fate can be punctual,
But don’t rely on it
Unless something different happens
I’m glad I left when my shoes said to run.
Sweat melted my face as if I were an ice cube,
Back at home I felt like a beached dead white whale.
As my thumbs stiffly tapped via Instagram
And read about the deaths of the late students.
Who’d arrived early feeling confident about
The essays they had written.
Until something different happened….
