Argh! I'm so nervous!
I feel the shadow of failure
surrounding me,
what if I fail?
Oh god,
my mum'll kill me.

I can see everyone,
slumped on desks,
heads in hands,
brows furrowed with
intense concentration.
Frustrated sighs of the student
who doesn't know what
mitosis is and meiosis isn't.

There's this dreary, heavy silence,
broken by the occasional cough,
or seasonal December sneeze.
Several times, I come so close
to laughing, because
of him, sat there making faces,
or her sat there smiling at me,
or because of the way Shakespeare phrased things,
but a strange line in Romeo and Juliet, like
'nay good goose, bite not'
isn't worth being thrown out of the exam.
My mum'd kill me.

And then, the whole thing's over,
the exam's finished,
I turn around to face a friend.
She's looking the same as me,
lost,
bewildered,
but amused by the broken tension.
And she's still smiling at me,
and he's still pulling faces,
and I can still remember that stupid line
and I'm smiling again.
And just to commemorate it,
I give an unexpected
Seasonal December Sneeze
and immediately see
the benefit... it's so ironic
how a cold can break the ice....