Thoughts About College

     This was for homework in Dr. Mackie's Poetry Writing course at Rogers State. This assignment was actually misreading the instructions; I blended the prompts "Take a walk and report on what you see" and "Try to use the same amount of syllables in each line, and rhyme using couplets" by mistake. It's basically all my opinions and a lot of observations about college life. And this was written near the BEGINNING of a semester; if I wrote another while I'm actually posting this(several months later in early December, near the END of the semester) it would probably be much angrier. And maybe shorter.

Walking around campus, past the soccer field fence,

the turtle shells of backpacks mark fellow students

with heads hung low in despair, or moving in packs,

complaining about steep textbook prices and sales tax..

Fall sunset closing down, the picture’s mighty pretty;

cars rocket down the hill going into the city.

Red and navy blue all ‘round; the colors of Hillcats,

the streetlamps swarmed by a collection of gnats;

bored and frustrated, ask yourself old questions,

discipline means giving yourself directions:

Skim textbooks again? Play guitar? An aimless hike?

Or take a shower, work out, TV and the like?

I’m striding alone, acting like I’m on a mission;

studying my left thumb’s new paper-cut incision,

wishing I could enjoy college like they seem to…

A minor war, twice a year hell begins anew,

each semester a mental fight to glean knowledge,

survive today, dream for tomorrow; a collage

of broken hopes, cold dorms and all-night lonesomeness.

May have worked well once, but now the system’s a mess.