Dreams of A Student

“I want something more than, more than restless mornings….”

Nothing was ever enough for her. Elyse sighed heavily, and her spine slumped into her chest. She rotated her uneasy head to stare at the heaps of white, lead-stained papers that stretched to her ceiling. She was submerged in a vast sea of homework with only the tiniest bed to keep her from sinking. The pale, freckled girl stumbled slowly out of her peach-red sheets that were stained with dinner from the night before, and her eyelids were zip-tied to her face. Fumbling to her cold, wooden desk, Elyse checked her tediously tight schedule. 5 tests today… Lucky me! She thought to herself. She opened her brimming notebooks and began to study until her eyes swelled. Yet, she didn’t mind it at all, and she enjoyed taking these tests. Nothing else mattered to her. She needed good grades, and she was consumed by her own insatiable thirst for academic validation. She was an addict, she craved it, and she needed it to live. Elyse said to herself,

“I need you like the air I breathe…”