Being a 20 year old black female college student isn't easy. There's all types of expectations put upon you that you have to live up to. You have to go out and party but you also have to maintain your grades. You have to be gentle and understanding yet also firm and strong. You have to be ambitious and motivated on top of being repeatedly being put down. You have to be hip and young but old and wise. You have to be "you" or else you're fake. But being "you" means you have to be what everyone expects "you" to be not who you actually are.

I have had more than enough of this. I profess that I have given up. My white flag is gently swaying in the breeze of my heavy sighs. I have developed resting sad face. My soul has been emptied of the desire to. I only want to sleep because then I won't remember the exhaustion and disappointment. I have given all I can find to give. I have given all I know to give.

I lay in bed resisting the urge to give in to my warped sense of reason. You should go to work more often. No. You should be doing your homework.I don't wanna. Fight the Man 'cuz nobody want a black girl that ain't woke.Then let me stay sleep. Buy some clothes and make up or you won't get a date. Kiss my single ass.

But I can feel them coming to force me back into work. To make sure that the only time I can give up is when I have been declared dead and gone. I can feel the guilt and regret try to crawl into my heart. Resentment and disgust for my lack of motivation crawls into my brain. Consequences bludgeon me. I am crushed under the burden of everything I have procrastinated and everything I am not.

I then realize that fighting means I have not given up. I just feel like my hard work will be futile. Fighting yourself is quite different than fighting some unknown entity. Fighting your brainwashed version of reason in the form of inaction only means you lose what you could be. You lose all the things you were meant to be. You understand that "giving up" leads to a life you have too much pride to lead.

So no more of the happiness with friends? No more learning about the topics that interest you? No more of looking in the mirror and feeling beautiful? No more of the pride in your ethnicity? No more of the self-acceptance you have worked so hard to achieve? That will not happen. I cannot let it.

Giving up is so very, very hard to do when giving up is leaving you.