16/08/2025
| "𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐟 𝐀𝐰𝐚𝐤𝐞, 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐟 𝐃𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠"
I don’t know how many cups of coffee I drank today. Not that I could really decide which serving counted as a cup and which didn't.
Earlier, I drank half a cup before going to school and then drank sixteen ounces of caramel macchiato the moment I passed by the coffee shop I frequented. I also drank another sixteen-ounces of cheap iced coffee from the cafeteria–it was more bland than yesterday’s blend, a bit bitter thanks to the vendor’s unsolicited morning grinch. Then I bought twenty-two ounces of canned cold brew on my way home in desperate measure to keep my heavily bagged eyes open.
I don’t even like coffee. I just needed something to keep me awake.
After all, I couldn’t afford to flunk another major after flunking two beforehand.
I’ll be doomed though, my restless thoughts have gradually consumed me to inhibition. It seems that staring at the wall, head empty, and with all hindrance of perfection has left me with little to no progress. With a heavy sigh, I unlocked my phone–it’s already 1AM and I barely got myself past this equation.
Should I sleep? No, I don’t feel like sleeping. It’s good that I drank a lot of caffeine earlier to the point that adrenaline has notched my blood pressure to triple digits. Besides, sleep is for the weak and I can’t sleep now when I still have a whole chapter to study.
Just twelve pages left of size seven, time’s new roman formulas on compounding and conversions and whatever alpha, beta, gamma are about. It’s fine, I’ll be fine. Still around five hours left for studying. I think that’s more than enough. Yeah, I got this.
I think I got this.
“The general gas law, also known as the ideal gas law, is a single equation that combines the relationships between pressure, volume…”
—
I wake up in cold sweat, notes still in hand, with my palpitating heart begging for me to keep my fatigued synapses from eventually giving in to unwarranted sleep. I blinked once, twice, three times, trying to shake off the haze. I must’ve dozed off—should’ve studied at my bedside table instead of sprawling across the bed, cycling through three or four “optimal” sleeping positions. My eyes wandered over the disheveled silhouette of the room, slowly adjusting to the pale light spilling through the glass window.
Light… My hands shuffle to find my phone amongst a mess of blanket, pillows, and pages filled by ragged, almost unintelligible handwriting. As blue light flashed my face, I cursed.
6:33AM. I fell asleep.
I have a quiz at 7:30AM
When everything registered in my mind, I immediately panicked. The physical sensation of adrenaline pumping through your veins as if unloading sixty-something tons of cement was suffocating. I felt scattered, my mind began to cannibalize on its left hemisphere as if it were a parasite suctioning nerves without teeth or claws, merely turning the brain into nothing but a vessel for survival. Without even fifteen minutes–no breakfast, no cheap coffee this time–I went to school.
The hallway feels longer than usual. Each step is louder, heavier, like my bones are clanking inside my skin. My hands are trembling—not because of the cold morning air, but because the caffeine still hasn’t figured out whether to keep me alive or kill me. My pulse is somewhere between a steady thump and an ambulance siren, and every beat reminds me of how much I’ve pushed my body past the point of asking for consent.
Once upon a time, I was the kid teachers pointed to when they wanted to prove hard work existed. “Consistent honor student,” “model pupil,” “one of our best”—labels I wore like a second skin. I thought the universe would reward me for it forever. But in college, those gold stars dissolve into nothing. It all slumps down to zero. Everyone here was someone’s top student. Everyone here is fighting for the same breath of air, and I… I’m just another name on the attendance sheet.
Nobody tells you that academic validation isn’t a stable currency. It doesn’t store value. It spends itself the moment you enter a room full of people who have the same report cards, the same ambition, the same desperation to be the best. The hierarchy collapses and suddenly you’re not gifted, you’re not exceptional–you’re replaceable.
Nobody tells you how to lose gracefully. Nobody teaches you how to look at the scoreboard and realize you’re no longer first, second, or even in the race. They teach you formulas and theories, but not how to survive when your identity starts peeling away in pieces. Academics was supposed to be my anchor; now it’s the chain dragging me under.
My heart feels like it’s pressing against my ribs, trying to punch its way out. My head is a balloon floating somewhere above my body, buzzing, as if sleep deprivation has rewired my neurons into a faulty circuit. The professor’s voice will soon echo in my ears, the quiz paper sliding onto my desk like a verdict. And in that moment, I’ll pretend I’m still the student who always has the answers—even if the only thing I’ve mastered is how to hide how badly I’m drowning.
Just like that, I didn’t even notice that I’m already standing in front of our room’s doorstep.
I looked at my phone. 7:15AM.
I feel like crashing out. I feel like I’m about to fling my body out of the fourth floor balcony. And yet I choose to restrain myself, finding my seat in a sea of bustling students reciting formulas and arguing over the substituents of sodium sulfate. As I dropped my bag down, a friend came up to me;
“Mayo man tuon mo?” she asked and I responded as if it were the most natural phrase that could leave my lips. It was the usual. It was automatic.
“Okay lang.” I said it like I’ve said it a thousand times, like muscle memory stitched into my tongue. My voice didn’t crack. My smile didn’t falter. But somewhere under the surface, my chest felt like it was being squeezed by an invisible fist, the kind that doesn’t loosen until you’re gasping for air.
In my head, I was replaying every page I didn’t finish last night, every formula I skimmed over, every second that slipped through my fingers while I convinced myself I could still catch up.
Like everyone else, I tried to clutch at the last minute.
It felt as if only seconds had passed when the professor finally walked in, quiz papers in hand. My stomach twisted, my throat tightened. And for a brief moment, I wished I could vanish—slip out of this body, out of this classroom, out of the version of myself that only knows how to measure self-worth in perfect scores and top ranks.
But I stayed. I stayed because I didn’t know what else to do.
And when the paper landed on my desk, I gripped my pen like it was the only thing keeping me tethered to the ground, praying that no one could see my hands shaking.
I’ll be okay... It left a sour aftertaste but for a moment, I almost believed it—until my eyes met the first question and the ground gave way beneath me.
Words by Neria Cassandra Palmes
Photo by Jeremy Chan
