Eyes Glazed Over the Screen (A Failed Economics Paper)

By Jacqueline Modungo

Fingers poised over the keys and they stumble on the poison of staying up until 3:18 each night just to “get time back” in the day, half freedom half flimsy punishment for everything I decide to delay eyes glazed over the screen and suddenly I imagine confections, confessions, and lips I have never kissed and lips I’ll never kiss again . I was born to scribble in the margins and I’ll be paid to study economics after trying to reinvent the wheel after running away from it after having it run over me and I’ll tell you another secret- I just like listening to the press of the keys, like any good american I can’t stand more than six seconds of silence so I fill it all with gentle observation like the oil from my fingers smudged over a phone camera lens like the empty can of high noon you walk past everyday at two pm like the bird nests you don’t realize are high rises like the cursor that blinks on the screen, begging you to keep going but will wait with you anyway; my hands are still poised over pages that haven’t been born but really I have set them down for a destination without work, time, or sets of 2,500 word counts, in between the pursuit of folding a thousand paper cranes, and they have settled somewhere where we work and rest with dignity, and they have settled somewhere where we take turns making each other cups of tea