dear deadline

this will never not be funny

you give my life meaning, the wrap-up of truth, the challenge to show something for it, and it all comes real in the magic last minute.

 i woke up to go return the computer to the library before 11. Every day over and over. i went up and down the stairs chasing plugs, and reconnecting to concordia. all this time. i was napping on the metro with my head on my scarf on the window ledge, a whole 11 minutes to go from jarry to berri-uqam. i was sitting on the floor with sarah in the LB hallway by the plugs, putting together the parts of our lesson plan. i skipped the tail end of another class, submitted with 2:25 minutes to go, and thought i couldn't get any lower. then again we were in class, side by side, double-editing  the same thing in google docs.

 there's always lower to go.

after the 5th coffee of the day, that clarity, the clipped, precise sentences that read so well in a project outline. addicted to lack of time.

and then the bigger hollow of my life. we were on the 7th floor in the Hall building when the night cleaners came out with the Zamboni. silly girls fretting over A grades. i told sarah then, i was those people, and after this is done i guess i'll be one of them again.

there's always enough time til there isn't, but you, dear deadline, are my proof i can do it.

i will get married on my deathbed, to my true love, and have 5 books published all at once, and at the same time from my forehead will spring fully adult sons, complete with bald patches and mortgages, whose hatred of me and my inadequacies will be already grown, bright, fearsome to behold,
a true legacy.