Free to Write

The mathematics of the thing are simple. Twenty four hours a day. Teaching class, three days a week, two hours a day. Class, three hours one day a week. Random television shows I must watch, four hours a week. Playing on writing.com--at least one hour a day. Homework, roughly three hours a week, sometimes as many as six. Prep time for teaching and office hours, ten hours a week. Grading, forty-one papers at roughly 10-15 minutes a paper, somewhere between seven and ten hours. Night knitting class and prep time for that, about ten hours a week.

It becomes clear that the one variable that exists and could potentially become less of itself is sleep. So, you finish grading at 2:30 with five papers left that you want to double check that the little freshman college student really didn't give you what you asked for by checking your mailbox in the morning. You then decide to write a poem because there's no way that you're going to have time in the morning while also grading five papers.

You post it. It's now 3am. You go to bed, and random lines that you should have changed from the poem run through your head. The alarm rings a six. There's nothing you can do.