Quiet Mind

What time is it?
Did I oversleep?
How do I turn this alarm off?
Is my roommate awake?
What a crazy dream.
Did I have any homework?
Hope not.
Do I have time to make coffee?
Yes.
How do I already have voicemail?
What should I wear to class?
Is it warm outside?
Do the people outside my window know they are being watched?
How often do they think about the beauty around them?
It is beautiful here.
Where the hell is my roommate?
Did she ever come home?
Am I gonna be late for class?
If I skateboard there, can I make it?
Where can I sit and still use my cell phone without my professor seeing?
Is anyone even paying attention?
Do people really use their computers for notes?
Who the fuck plays Farmville?
How has it only been 10 minutes?
Is it too early to start putting my books away?
One down, one to go.
Do I have time to eat before?
Quickly.
Why is the Lair always infested with douchebags?
Did anyone watch me steal this sushi?
(Moreover, did anyone honestly expect me to pay 13.99 for it?)
Is it weird that I am eating alone?
How do all of these people know each other?
Why is everyone talking about the same shit?
What the fuck is an exchange? Why do people want to be exchanged?
Do they know that, to me, this newspaper is more interesting then any of them?
Do they even know how to read, ever bother to?
Shit, I’m late.
Was it me, or did that class fly by?
How long were my ‘eyelids resting’?
All my notes consist of is a few words and a sketch of a nerdy guy with glasses.
Who is this man?
Am I going to show up for therapy today?
I should, while it’s still free.
Why do I make mistakes, knowing they are mistakes?
Why won’t she give me answers?
Why is this woman still smiling at me when she knows all my secrets?
How can she still bare to know me?
Why does she tell me to stop smiling when I talk about pain?
What is the good in talking about who has wronged me, who I have wronged?
Why do I forgive? Who is it for?
It softens the blow, but does not heal the wound.
Doesn’t she know the advantage of being the wrongdoer?
Why be broken when you can break?
I was once told it is easier to seek forgiveness than ask permission.
Wait… the hour’s up? I was just getting comfortable.
Is it obvious to her how little I talk outside of that hour, how much I think instead?
Do other people think this much?
If they do, how are they still so happy? Plastic smiles, no scars or signs of struggle.
How can anyone be so apathetic to the things that feed me life, to the extreme highs and lows that make my breaths worth taking, being taken away?
People always say that smoking hurts your lungs.
Who wants to die with perfect lungs?
Non-smokers get hit by cars every day.
Will I care about breathing easy when I am on my deathbed?
Will I make it to a deathbed?
Do I need anything from the grocery store before I head back home?
Duh.
Do I have money to buy it?
Oh, right. Top Ramen it is.
Is my apartment always this dark?
Seriously, where the fuck is my roommate?
How many calls have I missed from my mom today?
She kept hanging up on me, so I stopped answering.
Why does it still hurt every time she does that?
How is her insanity still so sharp?
Where does all that anxious energy come from?
Did she have to tell me how much debt she is in?
It’s because of me, I am told.
Or that she is renting out my room?
Or that I shouldn’t worry about my stuff?
She would never throw it away. “I’m not that kind of person.”
Or that she plans to keep the puppy I raised even after I graduate?
The only creature I called my own.
Why was she surprised at how upset I was?

All my life I had asked for a puppy.
Will I ever be able to bring myself to adopt another?
What would she say if she saw me right now?
Would she be disappointed?
Does she know how much I think about that?
Why does everything in this room remind me of girls I dated, faces I kissed, hands I held, lives I lived?
Will this ever stop?
Why am I never reminded of the guys I dated?
Is it really that late already?
If I go to bed now, how many hours is it?
Is it even worth sleeping?
Why can’t my thoughts stop racing?
They say you dream about the second to last thing you think about.
Oh no, I just thought about sharks.
What else can I think about?
Not sharks.
Not sharks.
Not sharks.
Damnit, sharks.
Is it this hard for everyone to sleep?
Are peoples’ dreams as tumultuous as their days like mine?
I heard the dream is actually life, and when we die, we wake up.
What’s that like?
Why is that the thought that quiets me?
Is this what other people need?
The thought of death to hum them asleep?
Who else asks of the world, “Am I alone, the only one who finds it hard to find a quiet mind?”
My mind, now quiet with the intoxication of sleep.
I wonder, until my questions slip into dreams.


Your weekend warrior,
Rica