I don't publish poetry much (if at all), but I'm finding this piece increasingly more relevant as we're heading toward finals week. This poem started out as an in-class assignment back in October, but I haven't been able to clear my head in over three weeks and all the days have been blending together.

Suddenly we've reached the end of the semester, and it's starting to settle in that I've only got three semesters left of college. It's a little scary, a little mystifying. It seems like the world is coming at me faster than I can handle it and all I could manage to do was capture the emotion in a poem.

Today is a clouded mountain. A fog
swirls in and around my head
and I can’t sort out what lies at the peak
and what’s still climbing. I can’t see
beyond the white, untouchable puffs
that refuse to be blown away—
to clear—no matter how hard I try
to force them to go.

They swirl and grow and spin until I can’t see
the next ledge for my foot, the next
handhold. As the clouds close in, I start
to fall, hard and fast, but the ground
never makes an appearance. I just keep falling,
tumbling, until my toes smack against a rock
and I find a place to pause—
to breathe.

The clouds never stray and the ground
never comes and I never find
the base of the mountain. It hides
beneath the dusty fog and waits
for the right time
to consume my body.

For now, I climb back to the peak, back
through the crisp dust that inflates
my lungs and struggle to breathe
in and out.