Ftrain, by Paul Ford

A day later, I see this entry as a failure, but I prefer it to a blank space in the journal. The wise will head over to tomorrow; the foolish will slog through.

Do you hear it? It’s out there. It’s calling me.

But I will not go. I will not descend into that madness. I deny the circular cruelty of shadowed beliefs, the soul-grinding repetition of mindless concepts. I deny the dark, annual, slovenly processions before the altar. I refuse the milky paper, scrawled with handwritten incantations, folded into leather, pressed into my hand by the highest and most cruel of superiors.

I will stay where I am, profitable, proud, honest, gainful. I will not let them take my faith away. I will not don their robes and pretend to their ceremonies. I will not break bread at their tables, lying words a filth upon my lips, as I fawn upon ideas that the world abhors.

I refuse you, graduate school. I am a baccalaureate, and shall remain one.