College was the life you daydreamed
like it was the hoop of pastel feathers 
steering the life you had finishing senior high.

Feathers started to wane,
left no trace until that dreamy hoop 
became a plain metal ring. 

Their humor was a Morse code 
you've been planning to learn,
couldn't be part of the mix,
even failed as a camouflaging background.

Saying present when called was an attendance in hell.
Crippling was that fear that you failed a subject for the first time.
That metal ring has long been broken to pieces.

"What is the point of it all?" You used to ask.
It didn't help not to have any safe places,
like a person or a secret spot to calm you
especially each time they laughed at you.

Was the pandemic good? It certainly was for you.
Big rest. Slow recovery. You began to heal.
Far away, you ventured from institute to institute
you landed at your third.

Online classes, failed units.
Overwhelmed yet disinterested,
couldn't even manage time well.

You never liked what you took,
but you continued to push through.
Robert Frost said it's the best way out.
We believe it until now, right?

It's a juggle of adulting and finishing college,
you even have contemplated dropping out.
Finances start to stress you out the most.
Aren't we old? And we're still here.

Now a clinical intern with little savings,
embarrassed to ask for needs,
your money is water in a sink without a drain stopper,
with an inflow of it too small,
and the outflow, too much

Ashamed for being in college for too long,
I pat your back for not giving up.
We pray and trust God's timing.
Yet at times, we can't help it, right? We still feel shitty.

- rekeshallys