my alarm clock goes off at 7:58am, marking the beginning of my first block class. i roll over in bed, doubling my comforter to combat the cold air that the ceiling fan circulates directly onto my body. half-empty water bottles, journals, pens, and dirty laundry litter the bottom half of my bed; i have to sleep horizontally. i have one pillow and two blankets left on my bed, and i would be lying if i said i remembered when they were last washed.
i mark attendance for first block, then roll back to the comfortable side of my body. i fall asleep to the sound of group message notifications and the soft whirring of my air conditioning.
my next alarm goes off at 9:53, telling me to join the zoom meeting for my poetry class. i open my near-dead laptop, reach my hand over to find the charger, and join the call. my camera stays off, out of fear that my peers will see the bedroom i stay in with subpar cleanliness and my unwashed hair. the call lasts about an hour and a half, about an hour and ten minutes longer than my brain allows me to concentrate.
i close my laptop for lunch, refusing to check my dwindling grades for fear of failure on my end and anger on my parents’. my boyfriend texts to ask how i slept, and about a quarter of my energy is consumed by just texting him back. my feet are cold. but i can’t get up to move my blanket again.
i stay i bed for a while longer, until the pit of my stomach is empty enough to force me to eat half of a brown sugar cinnamon pop tart. the sound of my shoes grinding sand into the tile floor is enough to make my ears rumble in discomfort, a strong accompaniment to the agonizing stomach ache i’ve had for a week now.
my clock app reminds me to take attendance for writing lab, so i log back into the zoom meeting from the same email i’ve had pinned in my inbox since the beginning of september. students arrive one by one, most with their cameras turned on, so i feel rather alone. my teacher probably thinks i’m distracted. i am, but not by anything avoidable. i’m just trapped within the ever-tightening spiral of my own thoughts and worries.
the class ends before i can even begin to process what was just expected of me, and i roll back over in bed. i take attendance for fourth block, but i can’t even bring myself to open the class page in moodle. i fall back asleep, with an empty stomach and an overflowing headspace.
my mom comes home, settling two or three grocery bags on the counter, raising her voice for me to hear her all the way in the back of the house. she groans loudly at the sight of pop tart crumbs on the granite tile, and i thank god she hasn’t seen the 6 cups and 3 half-eaten snack bags of popcorn on my bedside table.
i sweep away the crumbs, then return to the two blankets that swallow me whole yet again. i fall asleep, but for some reason, never get enough rest. i wake up at 8pm, go get a sip of water, then remember i haven’t had any all day. i drink the rest of the shallow cup. it’s 11pm. my boyfriend’s face is dimly lit in the corner of my facetime screen, and i go back to bed.
my alarm clock goes off at 7:58am.
