Student Dying

in our huge world,

with the huge oceans,

with the huge continents,

with the huge population,

there was a tiny girl

with a huge dream.

day an night she dreamt,

and dreamt and dreamt and dreamt,

obsessively, passionately, intensely.

she vowed to make it reality.

she perfected her dream,

her ideal future,

painting it so perfectly, so intricately,

down to the tiniest detail.

and oh, how she wanted it, how she craved it.

she worked and worked and worked,

slogging day and night.

every minute of the day was spent

towards her future.

her dream.

she toiled and struggled,

until her hands were stained black with ink.

until her ribcage turned prominent.

until the bags under her eyes became almost permanent.

and then, it happened.

her work stopped producing results.

she had gone so far ahead of the curve,

that the curve had turned to a circle,

and she was back to square one.

she wasn’t moving forward.

eat some food!

said her mother.

get some sleep!

said her friends.

but how could she? her future was floating further and further away!

she couldn’t just stop chasing it.

she had lost her momentum. She needed it back.

take a break, they said.

it will help.

so she did.

but whenever she tried,

she was filled with guilt.

why take a break, when she could be catching up? why take a break, when she was already so behind? why take a break, when she should be chasing her dreams? working was the only thing that made her happy.

so why stop?

she knew only one remedy to her faults- working harder.

why wouldn’t it work now?

most warn us to not stay stuck in the past.

live in the present, they say. Live in the moment.