Burnout
They say dreamers aren’t doctors
So they kill the dream
Tests with trivial details we have barely seen,
let alone remember.
Classes for at least eight hours a day
And make sure “free time” is spent the same way:
memorizing, learning, studying, reading
I can fit more in if I give up eating.
Restless nights — cramming? or incapable of sleep
It’s funny how hard it becomes to count sheep
when we are gasping
the world’s weight crushing our lungs
you’re grasping at straws
but you’ll just pull the short one
— and then tell us it doesn’t matter anyways.
No, they say
You will never be one hundred percent.
And that’s okay
But
We hear an echo in the blackness behind our eyes
A voice twists their words, laughs and replies:
you are nothing.
you are worthless.
Give it all, and know how little that is.
So pointless to drown out the words
When it’s obvious you can’t swim.
And we are left gasping again
Water closes over our heads
So clear to us no one else can see it —
clear as glass until the moment it shatters.
Let’s sit here holding sparkly shards that used to be dreams
Stargaze those lofty expectations we’ll never meet.
They do not realize that we bleed
And if you admit it, then you’re weak.
Head down, push harder, give it your all
We sprint on towards the edge that we will not see
Until we are flying in a glorious free-fall,
Plummeting from heights we never knew we reached.
Medical Student Editor Emeritus
Northeast Ohio Medical University
Ileana began her first year of medical school the fall of 2014 at the Northeast Ohio Medical University. She hopes to become a doctor one day; more importantly, she hopes to live anywhere that gets sunlight for more than three months a year. As one of six children, she has learned many important life lessons about how to eat really fast and the importance of not being last to shower. These lessons come in handy now that she lives with five of her classmates, without whom she couldn't imagine getting through medical school.