the end of a law student's cursory winter vacation

[pfennigdreadful]

here on this first monday, they are students again.
swept and dragged slowly through the ugly sterile halls,
old students tow their scores of red law books
as if they carried a lead burden in their rucksacks.
they're resigned in their duty to balance the burden
with the familiar weight of their albatross corpse.
beaten down hard by all who can take their money,
each individual has been stripped of their name
and given a number; they are obedient and robotic now.

their collective chatter of vacation, laced with groans,
slows to a murmur as the podium is fully occupied
by a loud, harsh figure of sadism and constructed esteem.
and so the lessons recommence; the beating resumes.
the professors profess with a cold socratic hiss;
they wave their clout in self-service and condescension.
they are themselves the heaviest lead burdens on the scales.

"this exam will be harder than you could ever imagine,"
wheezes the puffed up academic, "and i admit i enjoy watching
all of you suffer." the students' laughs are scattered.
they still haven't learned that nobody is kidding.