I keep dreaming about the last day of school

Every few months my brain drags me back to that last bell in June, but the hallway is just a little bit off — the lockers are the wrong color, the exit leads to a waiting room, nobody's there except me and I'm carrying a box of old papers I never graded. I always wake up annoyed, like even my subconscious knows I've got unfinished business with a stack of essays. But tonight I caught myself thinking maybe that's not dread — maybe that's just what hope looks like when you've been doing this for twenty years.