one million things to do instead of studying

Instead of studying for the test

that I completely forgot about,

that is first period tomorrow morning,

I'm going to write a poem.

Because what else would I do? Study?

Hell no.

Let's be serious here.

I'm curled up on my bed like a shrimp,

yes, a shrimp,

with close to a million things on my mind,

one of which is that damn test,

which I never received the study guide for.

But the rest of the nine hundred ninety-nine thousand

things, I could probably write out in a list.

It wouldn't be a pretty one though, with fancy

highlighters and markers and pens,

but merely an uglier version of my thoughts,

just written out with a dull #2 pencil

the size of my fingertip.

I'd keep trying to erase my near-illegible handwriting

with that one eraser I poked all the holes in

back in elementary school,

but it would never work because of all the lead

that was permanently stuck in it.

It was probably filled with an obscene amount of

fourth-grader germs, too.

Gross.

I have absolutely no idea where this is going

and I have no desire to figure it out, which is why I just

let my brain fire off ideas like bullets

until I catch one that isn't excruciatingly cringe.

Like the fact that my cat is fat

and purrs louder than a jackhammer,

but his claws feel like one when he

whacks me for not petting him 

with the proper enthusiasm.

Add that to my list of nine hundred ninety-nine thousand things on my mind

and we're back to one million again.