Spiral-Bound Literature

Sometimes college classes are so riveting you scribble down every word like each is a liquid bead of wisdom trying to dribble away, like each sentence is a revelation you’ve known to be truth all your life but never understood until now.

But usually, your college classes are not like this. Usually they’re full of half-prepared and distracted professors, kids texting under their desks like the empty space beneath their tables is somehow acting as a visual barrier, and a palpable sense of heaviness in the air that accompanies collective boredom.

My required course in Western Literature is one such class. We’re currently reading Homer’s The Iliad and today discussed the death of Patroclus (spoiler!!) and the presentation of women within the text. I actually love The Iliad and find both of these conversation-worthy topics, but unfortunately the class is populated with characters that make enjoyment difficult. Exhibit A: The overly sassy black woman, who constantly refers to Helen as ‘some little slut who can’t keep her hands to herself’, laughs about The Iliad’s references to rape and is constantly telling our professor, “I don’t think you understand how things worked back then.” He’s the professor. I’m going to assume he understands how things worked back then. Exhibit B: The conservative know-it-all who today told us all she didn’t want to talk about Freud because his ideas ‘grossed her out’. And Exhibit C: our professor, an adorable, bespectacled man with a thick Chicago accent who basically spends the entire hour quietly puzzling over how to wrest control of the class back from the prior two figures. Plus, not that it’s any fault of his, but listening to long passages of The Iliad rendered in a vocal affectation akin to this:

doesn’t exactly inspire the epic atmosphere one expects from Homer’s heroic poem.

Anyways, since I’ve read all the material and, not to sound too arrogant, think I’ve pretty much grasped the concepts our professor spends the entire class trying to relay to the overly sassy black woman, I’ve turned to writing poetry in the margins of my notebook. And considering I’m writing thesaurus-less I think I’ve churned out some pretty good stuff! So I would like to share with you one of today’s works, a piece I’ve entitled:

Dozing in Class

Sluggish sleep dulls my mind

like a blanket of sand,

sun-warmed and tight-packed,

keeps my eyelids glued closed.

There’s a need in my bones

to soak marigold light,

warm away all the frost

from my snow-frozen soul.

My mind is a tundra,

the wind bites at the plains

though there’s little to crush

underheel in these wastes.

Still sleep whispers sweet

little songs that behest,

soothing tones that seduce

with the promise of rest.

More strong-willed by far

than the Iliad’s lines,

than Shakespeare’s sweet verses

and poetry rhymes.

So my thoughts tend to flit

towards a happier place

and thus sleep wraps me tight

in it’s welcome embrace.

The End!