If finals weren’t holding a gun to my head
I’d write a poem for every person with a Friday-flowerless mailbox
And stick the folded love letter in the empty cavity like a heart transplant.
I don’t even have the free time to think about all the things I would do if I had the free time
But if I did
I would write a poem
To all the people whose classes have been clawing at the insides of their skull.
To the people stuck boomeranging between
class, dorm, bunt, class, dorm, bunt
As if your whole world has been reduced to the space inside those buildings.
To those who go all day with empty DMs, but overflowing Inboxes.
To those whose weekends are still water, uneventful, waiting games you’re tired of playing.
To those that hunker down in the library long enough to hear the COVID guidelines announcement more than once.
To those who linger around an empty Buntrock after hours, when it is occupied by no one except the ghosts and custodians.
To those who are mentally already back home where there is mom’s cooking and good barbers.
To those international students who will not see their families and have no one except Netflix and each other.
To the seniors who will soon be leaving St. Olaf with a degree, an adult life and a bitter resentment towards all that is on the Hill.
To those whose only consistent human interaction is with Elaine.
To those whose semester has been proof the “college experience” is a myth.
To those who were quarantining in isolation long before COVID ever was a thing.
I want you to know this campus would be nothing without you.
Please hang in there.
You got this.
We got this
And I wish you the best:
For peaceful weekdays and memorable weekends.
For successful finals and cheap plane tickets.
For tight goodbye hugs and darling photos for proof it all happened.
For an easy recovery after your vaccine shots and an even easier recovery after Friday night shots.
For fulfilling internships, high paying summer jobs, warm weather and 8 hours of sleep.
You deserve it. Call this a shoutout or an inspiration post or a St. Olaf flirt or whatever you need it to be to make the home stretch less stressed. You are more than capable. We are almost there.
Only 3
More
weeks
left.
