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Paper Buildings
stacks of inked papers pile high up
in my messy, wooden home,
shuddering from the weight
of its unstable foundation
paper houses and paper towns
loom over me to
engulf the dusty, cracking
ground scattered in broken
pencil tips
and crumpled sticky notes
layered high
like sheets of linen that stay tucked
away in molding closets,
I race away from endless
paper buildings
that collapse and fall
and drown me in cuts
of blood
and ink
and stress
and a mess
of nothing
because
Thursdays and Fridays
don’t mean anything to me
when I can’t seem to
to see anything else
but the stacks of documents
that leer over
my shaking shoulders
I punched a hole in my wall
the other day
all for an equation
that wouldn’t untangle
in my tired brain—
plaster fell through
cardboard walls
and my hand came out bleeding,
from paper cuts
all those paper buildings,
constructed high enough
to block out the sky—
for nothing but
a single letter that determines
who I am now
and who I will
become
paper cities
suffocate me
until my lungs tighten
from the unknowns
of another day;
candles that
flicker in dark ink stains
try to make sense of
velvety thoughts
that won’t stop
swirling.
And nothing seems to
wake me up again
from my sleep-deprived
mind as
paper sheets rain
down from the sky,
blocking me from
dreaming about the
sights I’ll
never
get to see.
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One day, I had just finished taking a math quiz and I utterly bombed it. I didn't know the answers to half of the questions. I finished the school day, painfully, and went home. And then I realized I still had hours of homework to complete. It was honestly a really bad day. I wrote this poem out of frustration and I hope it resonates with other students who have to balance academics with their busy schedule.