The essays arrive in waves.

Cheerful waves.

They smell like toner and optimism.

Each begins with something like I have always wanted… Wanting is a credential. The present is a well. The essay is a ladder. The applicants have studied language architecture. They have read the same five books and loved them deeply, which is to say briefly.

On my desk is a mug that says Change Is Possible. The mug does not believe this. The desk is particleboard. The desk has seen three funding models die. The desk knows.

The essays speak of first-generation pride. They tell me about how this program, this institution, these fluorescent hallways, will unlock something vital. The essays do not mention adjunct wages. No mention of rent. They do not say that joy, when leveraged, accrues interest.

One applicant writes about her grandmother’s hands. One writes about hiking at dawn with father. They all write I am ready.

The sentences are polished. The commas reveal. The paragraphs gently guide. The writers speak with confidence about study and rigor and debate. They believe there is a door. The door opens outward, saving those from within from a fire. The door is escape.

The essays arrive daily. All of them trust that someone on the other side of the desk is listening for the right sound.

Outside my window a campus tour group moves like a school of fish. Branded backpacks. Refillable water bottles. The guide’s voice rises and falls like a practiced prayer. Over there is the library. Over there is the future. Over there is debt with a view.

The students nod. They smile in the right places. They take photos of buildings designed to outlive them. Someone asks about job placement. The guide answers with percentages. Percentages are reassuring. Percentages soothe.

Back at my desk, another essay takes a breath and begins.

I read carefully. I read as if reading were a kind of hope.

The essays are not wrong. They are accurate in the way weather forecasts are accurate. They know a storm exists. They do not say who gets wet.

Outside, the tour group pauses by a sculpture no one touches. The guide calls it aspirational. The students write that down.

Inside, my inbox refills itself.

The essays arrive in waves.

I fail them all.