You sit down at your desk, and it’s the same desk you sat in on Monday, and the Monday before that, and every Monday ever, as far as you’re concerned. The books you set on the floor are also the same, as is the teacher, squinting at the same laptop with the same tired expression, as if to say ‘I don’t spend enough time with my kids. I should really change that.’ You feel sad for her, just like you know you will tomorrow, and Wednesday, and Friday, and on and on. Same ceiling. Same students. Same peels of laughter, tumbling out slowly and threatening to get stuck in a person’s hair. The hands on the clock are hardly moving, and yet time is flying out from beneath your feet, and you prop them on the desk in front of you to prevent this sensation from troubling you. A beautiful boy passes through the door, and you try to read his eyes. Perhaps it is wrong, but you think of him as a book, the spine cracked long ago and the pages exposed. His pages are patient and filled with that expectancy one meets upon glancing at a coming storm: the columns of dark clouds with their heavy breaths and sighs that make waiting for the rain a painful, anxious affair. You don’t have to watch him. You already know where he will sit. You know that he will hold his pencil between his teeth as he searches for a book or a calculator, and you imagine that he is digging for a shred of happiness in his bag. You are sorry for having these thoughts. Eventually, the bell will ring. The announcements will last a while, and you won’t have to stop talking when you are instructed to. Another math lesson. A sheet of notebook paper, your pencil, smile when the teacher smiles. How is it that everyone else has a smile so naturally set on their face? You feel as though you are tugging at little threads to get your lips to look that way, and it is a tedious process. Your face hurts. Your heart hurts. This class, like the five others that you have, takes about fifty-five minutes, and when it’s over, you will be that much closer to not being here. You walk through the hallway feeling sorry. You go to lunch feeling sorry. You get on the bus feeling a little lighter, a little less sorry, but still, it is there. You are sorry for having to come to school and having to breathe and having to do homework and not being nice enough to people and not being a better student and eating too much and being who you are and not telling the people you love that you love them and the face that sometimes you are laughing and smiling and it is genuine but those moments are so fleeting and few and you are so so miserable and you are sorry sorry so r r y sorr y sor r r r y y.