career day

18 years of school, but 1st grade me 

had it right all along: 

she's clenched her fist around an expo marker, 

she's writing out my dreams during reading time,

on the whiteboard, archaic carpet pressing patterns into her knees, 

she's writing a story, a story about wanting to write.

I am currently at 1:22 on a Tuesday

due dates are shouting

about tomorrow, tonight, this week and next. But 7 weeks from now my eternal cycle of studenthood will end, 

for me, 

for now. 

I had some basic assumptions:

I always thought his eyes would be blue,

I thought I would have a baby by now, 

I thought I would write books. 

just being honest.

I always wanted to write books but here I am, repeatedly sentencing myself to not write books.

It's kind of dreadful.

The career lady talked a lot about graduate degrees, and I heard expensive and not what I want to study. She talked about accreditation. Valid points. I'll probably pursue them. 

Meanwhile, the same dream will keep welling up inside me and telling me to write. 

2 months from now graduation will come and go and 18 years will come and go and will have filled me with a come and go of 

papers in hand, pen ink staining that callous that forms from holding a pencil, fingerprints feeling better when i'm writing, hands sporting lunch stamps and holding books and turning pages, creasing the corners of my favorites,

a come and go of stories whose power makes my skin crawl, about death in 1860s America, of civil war; about Mumbai and barefoot boys, fighting for trash scraps and a school; about Jack London and his Call of the Wild, of dogs and wolves running the night.

this come and go has filled me up with time and calculus and teachers who I love and

now,

again,

the girl remembers she wants to write.