The Tea Burned Too Hot, The Burn Scarred

It's honestly pathetic how blindsided I’ve become from just one person, but eh, it got me to realize something.  

Your worst enemies are never the ones who are crystal clear.  

They hide behind a cloud covering your consciousness and wait until you’re at your highest. Good enemies want to take you down while you’re up.  

Just when you thought the last assignment was done, the last battle had a white flag flying higher than any arrows or bullets, he emerges from the mist with college applications.  

Suddenly school isn’t the wars’ denouement, but the end of a peace treaty.  

We are trading one prison for another. 

L' enfant du Regiment, and injured girl covered by the jacket of the soldier who bandaged her before going back to battle, leaving her on a tomb to keep her out of sight. She's "protected," but the battle rages on.

You’re telling me he couldn’t stop with these assignments and tests, but had to add on essays too? I already need every ounce of day and moonlight to finish calculus and statistics and psychology and computer science and literature...but now I have to plan the rest of my life? I must make time for the bells and the papers and the hallways but also the administrators who won't see my face until I maybe get in?  

I hate him.  

I hate Stress.  

It’s in these moments I miss my best friend. I miss the time we had, and long for the time we will never see. We spent every minute we had together, even though we went to different schools. My favorite memory with her? It must've been that night in fourth grade. It was just us, a small reading light, and the Prisoners of Azkaban. We were supposed to be asleep, but the comfort of Sirius Black and the warmth of the blanket over our heads shielded us from the darkness just long enough for us to finish the book. 

She died at the start of 10th grade. I didn’t even have the time to grieve. I was instantly thrust into a cycle of sleep, school, study, sleep. Without her, I couldn’t find peace. My hair was braided too tight because she wasn’t there to hold it back. My body started to change because she wasn’t there to run wild with me. My eyes started to hold more water because she wasn’t there to wipe it away. 

Her name? It was Rest. I think you would’ve liked her. I need her right now. I am hiding in my closet trying to find her, but there’s no warmth, no light. Rest was killed, and I want her back, but the only way I know to revive her is by ending the cycle, not the screams to work harder or catch up.  

I need time, I need certainty, I need Rest. 

The sword is sheathed. I raise my white flag. 

Ophelia, from Shakespeare's tragedy. She seems finally at rest, but as in all of his works, peace only comes after the last breath. 

 

This was the first draft I ever wrote for any college essay. When college week started, I was reminded of this and adapted it for the seed “college week.” The stress is real, and instead of telling you that, I'm letting you all read.