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Nikki Krug

Absorbent

I am a sponge:
in the crowded lecture halls,

I soak up the knowledge that pours from the mouths of my
tutors. I absorb numbers and facts, places and names,
strategies and theorems until I am full to bursting. I drip
the words I've sucked up back onto the blank paper pages
and paint a mess of soggy reiteration.
at the dingy night clubs,
I drink in the dirty air and poison liquor that floats toward
me, filling my glass before I can drain it. I drown in ecstasy
and smoke and the beating bass that throbs like the frantic
hearts that dance around me. I bathe in the belief that for
one night my youth makes me invincible and I am numb to
the knowledge of life's awful truths. I let my inhibitions
spill.
behind the riotous picket lines,
I swallow the opinions of my peers with thirsty ears as they
flow from the faucet of anger, rage, hate, and fear. I dribble
their protests along with them and share in the hopeless
hope that oozes from their romantic daydreams of rebels
and martyrs, for causes that mayor may not have been
made· up to serve their restlessness. And if I disagree, I do
not dare let my own true feelings leak for fear of being
wrung out by that mob of marchers desperate for change.
next to you,
I am submerged into your reality, heavy and sopping with
your desires, your ideas, you and only you. I immerse
myself in your essence, your beliefs, your touch. I choose to
forget all the times you cast me aside like some dirty, used
up thing. My existence becomes for you and I become
saturated with your presence until I lose the very thought of
myself.
Then, I remember. I am merely a sponge.

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