Marginalia

Dear Ben, 

All my life I’ve heard
“Go there”
“It’ll be good for your future”
And I wanted to 

I grew up listening to stories about you
About the people that know better

Then I met you for the first time
And I thought
“Oh, it’s just regular”
“There’s nothing special about this”
I only wanted to go because
My friends were going

I only wanted to follow you because
My friends were
I never loved you.
I only loved you because my friends chose you.
But I chose you anyways.

I haven’t left you yet
Staying until next year
I wish I were leaving now,
but because of our predicament,
I can’t 

Through the years we’ve been together,
I always thought
“It’ll get better”
This was naïve

All you did was hurt me
Made me cry
Caused my anxiety attacks
Near panic attacks

But I stayed
Because I knew if I left
I would have to leave behind everything
I’ve ever built
All of my friends
All of my expectations
All of their expectations
So I stayed
I had no other choice 

Before I met you
I didn’t care about my grades
Now an 83 is devastating
And I hate you for that
I hear about you and all I feel is
stress and depression and fragility

Dear Ben,
All you’ve done is cause me
more stress than I can bear
Even though you’re the 71st best
Even though you’re the best
To me, you cause so much stress and hatred
despite what you say

Why do you think your students drink?
Why do you think your students vape?
I hate you
Yet I chose you
You’re not what I wanted
But what they expected
So when I finally leave,
please cut out my photo
from all the yearbooks
and forget my name
forever

With loving tenderness and care,
Your student