friday quentin
BY QUENTIN REYNOLDS
You wake up.
You are Quentin.
It is Friday.
You are Friday Quentin.
It’s 8:00am because
Thursday Quentin thought:
“Let’s wake up early
and get breakfast tomorrow!”
Thursday Quentin is an idiot,
ignore him.
You set the alarm to 10am.
You wake up again,
but you stay in bed
for 15 minutes.
You get out of bed.
You stumble to the bathroom
and brush your teeth.
You stumble back to your dorm room
and put on the clothes
that Thursday Quentin left out.
Thursday Quentin is cool,
he’s a pretty smart dude.
You look at your emails.
They need people to volunteer to tutor kids.
You and kids don’t get along.
You delete that email.
They also need people to volunteer to play with shelter cats.
You and cats do get along.
You eagerly respond “I can help.” to that email.
It’s 11am.
Class starts at 12pm.
You pick up your bright orange backpack.
You stumble out of your dorm.
It’s freezing outside
and the sky is one massive light gray cloud.
They keep saying
“There’s going to be a Thunderstorm!”
on weather reports, but
it never happens.
You enter Commons.
The smell of a food mash-up
hits your nose.
Is it chicken?
Is it beef?
Nobody knows.
You should’ve gotten breakfast
and skipped lunch.
All of Clinton wants lunch at Commons
on a Friday at 11:06am.
You find an empty table on the far balcony.
You get a cheeseburger because they have salmon for lunch.
You don’t like salmon.
Too much ocean.
Something that soaks in dirty ocean water
shouldn’t be soaking in your stomach.
Your cheeseburger,
however,
is beautiful.
You go to the soda fountain.
You get water
because you want to try to be healthy.
You also get three cookies
because you aren’t trying too hard to be healthy.
You go back to your table.
You read the Daily Bull
while you eat your cheeseburger.
It looks like
HOOP FEVER
is still spreading.
It’s 11:40am.
You leave Commons and go to Benedict.
You sit outside the classroom.
You check the news.
Trump.
Olympics.
Korea.
Trump.
Trump.
Bitcoin.
Trump.
You get tired of seeing Trump everywhere.
(good job adding him in here too Author Quentin!)
You go to class.
It’s the only one you have on Friday.
You leave class.
You have absolutely no idea
what just happened
in the past 50 minutes.
You ask your friends to hang out.
They’re too busy dying to hang out.
One is sick.
The other is exhausted.
You realize you have two friends.
Of the two thousand
people
at Hamilton
two
will consistently talk to you.
You go back to your room.
You play video games.
It’s 5:37pm.
You are hungry.
You go to the diner because Commons has more
SALMON.
You order a cheeseburger.
You wait for said cheeseburger for 20 minutes.
Somehow the people next to you in line
have already been to a party
and are incapable of balance.
You avoid eye contact
with the partiers.
You sit down.
You eat your cheeseburger.
You go back to your room.
You text your friend from Ohio.
She is also busy dying.
You are tired of video games.
You are tired of YouTube videos.
You have already done all of your work.
Except...
Except a poem.
You sit down and write a poem
which makes a pretty fine day
sound depressing.
You center the poem on the page
because you’re important!
You are tired.
You go to sleep.
You are Saturday Quentin-