Malfunctioning
We are
day-to-day here, surviving off
coffee and energy drinks
and herbal teas passed like drugs
beneath the lunch table.
Like cigarettes
in a jailyard.
The future doesn’t
extend
past the week’s exams;
countless piles
of papers abound and oh,
the mile-long lists of
‘things to do’
we’ve incorporated
into our skin.
We are bursting
with knowledge,
but sometimes it seems
like we’re trying to forget
and be ourselves again:
the people we were
before the caffeine addictions
and the neurotic breakdowns
that always land so nicely
on our busiest days.
We’re malfunctioning,
rusting over—
not from time, but
from use, and the world
sees us as children: inexperienced,
immature,
in need of direction.
Yet here we are,
pretending to be adults.