Angst.

I am feeling anxious, and nervous, and excited, and like a volcano is simmering in the very tiny capillaries of the arches of my feet and slowly, s l o w l y, rising up into the kneecaps and hip bone sockets and pelvic cavities and abdomen, and singeing the wings of the thrashing damselflies and butter wings hibernating there. Another academic year, and did you know, that I often miss the first day of class to purposefully avoid introduction games and the blushing of cheekbones and stumbling of words? I bet you didn't. I think this year, I'll attend the first day. I'll quietly sit in a mothball scented auditorium with two hundred students and listen to the hiss of the radiators. I think back to last year, and running to class early to claim my seat by the window, or seat 86, or a place to hang my mittens and my scarf on the radiator hinges. I would open up my journal, and write until my elbow ached, like little pinpricks, write until my professor would stalk in, three minutes late everyday. I would watch him swathe the board in white chalk, throw the green slab upward with the flick of a wrist. 

Mostly, the volcano is warm and familiar. The thought of my soles on a lackluster shortcut to the library or the humanities building, padding the smooth freckled concrete. Gathering leaves to press in my yellow leaflets, adding to my watercolor leaf collection. I am ready to fall back into routine, ready to carry a thermos of cinnamon coffee in knit covered palms. I'm anxious to slip beneath the train tracks and watch the flickering lights twitch, feel leaf tornadoes surround my calves, inevitably glance at the branches to see if the world has changed colors and dipped into Autumn.