Dear Homework,

Can you not?

I spend all hours of my week on you and what do I get in return? Sleepless nights and endless stress. How is this relationship symbiotic in any manner? I slave for you, I worry over you, I care for you as if you are more essential than my own life. And you torture me in return.

You keep me from my friends; my time is better spent with you than them, of course. You prohibit me from visiting my family, you are far more important. You numb my creativity with a calculating hand. You keep me up each night, sleeplessly tending to you. You keep me in suspense, always taking your time to make your way back to me, never as enthusiastic as I had hoped.

I can't take such abuse any longer. You keep up pretenses of making me better, smarter, stronger, but, instead, you whither me away like a rock in the tide. You're slowly killing me, and I cannot rightfully stand for it any longer.

So I stand against you now, determined, posed for change, though I know I will return to my own ways with a single flash of my planner. You are inevitable. Sometimes I dream of a far off future where I am finally free of you, but then I remember you will follow me through my uphill battle towards a graduate degree, and then morph into a new form of deadlines and horrors in the world of careers that will follow.

I am resolved to hate you, and sometimes, such as today, when you keep me from the lovely day out my little window, and taunt me with demands that will bar me from ever binge-watching Netflix again, I truly do.

But I stay with you anyway. I build you up, I try so hard to make everything perfect for you, I give every bit of myself away to you, and receive just a single letter, making or breaking my fate, in return.

Why must you haunt my dreams? Why must you follow me everywhere? Why must I carry you with me each day, always demanding more, more, more, more? Have I not done enough? Can't you ever take a break, allow me to breathe, and reassess this unequal treatment towards me?

I feel I have earned more than a judgement on my worth, waited for with bated breath each day. I feel I am owed a moment of rest, a break from you and your terrible neediness.

Without me, you would be nothing. Without me, you would have no purpose, no living mind, heart, or soul to derive any strength from. Without me, you would cease to exist. So how can you justify such blatant mistreatment of me and my needs?

I give you everything, and I think it is time you give something back. Give me rest, give me freedom, give me instant success rather than the far off hope of a better future. I demand you give me what I am owed. I demand justice, for me and all the others you have ever abused.

Sincerely,

Every College Student Ever