Hey Shades! Abstract poetry like this is more of my style and I approve. 
First of all, hearts to you. <3 School is tough, stressful, and causes great anxiety. The expectations set to a student can be unrealistic, and it can be easy to forget that academia is still full of humans with emotions who can make mistakes. We often talk about avoiding toxic work environments, but what about toxic school environments? It's difficult because it's not as easy as just getting up and putting in your two weeks. I can tell through this poem that you're mentally exhausted and trying your best, but others keep asking too much of you. And lemme tell you, it's okay to be exhausted and upset. The whole system sucks and it's not your fault. Remember, you're in school to learn, become a better person, and influence the world with your brainy fish knowledge. Take care of yourself <3 and remember your goal. But at the same time, it's okay if your goal changes. Just thought it needs to be reminded. <3
OKAY that was more of a ramble of advice than an actual review lol so let's start the real review now.
I really like the three perspectives going on here. We've got the first perspective of a (student) email reaching out to you, the second perspective of your reaction of this email, and the third perspective of your stressed out brain's inner monologue. The last two perspectives blur with one another, but I think they're distinct enough that they warrant their own style.
Speaking of style, what do I mean by that? For text-based abstract poetry, I mean the following: font, color, size, and punctuation. With that in mind, I'm going to break up the three perspectives with my suggestions to improve the styles. I'll also touch upon background, formatting, and confusing parts.
#1 - Email
I like that the white email is a courier font (heh, courier and mail) and is a simple white color that contrasts against the background. Because it's an email, I suggest having proper capitalization and punctuation here with a consistent font, size, and color. It shows that as the poem goes through a mental breakdown, the email stays the same as unemotional, never-changing, lifeless words.
#2 - Reaction to Email
I like how this perspective is right below the email, in drab gray, and italicized to show your thoughts. I also like how punctuation and capitalization is not present to display the comparison to the white email. (It would be an even bigger contrast if the white email text had perf writing punctuation, btw!)
#3 - Poetic Monologue
Ah yes, the heart of the poem. I'm not a big fan of it being the same drab gray color. Perhaps a compromise between the two other perspectives would be better: the same white as #1 but with the same font as #2. (Also, avoid bolding serif fonts whenever possible; it gets harder to read.) However, as the poem goes on, I would like to not only read the breakdown, but see the breakdown. Have the words change color, font, and size for extra emphasis of your point and theme. I outlined an example of this at the end of this review.
General Formatting
Naturally, our eyes wander up to down when reading, just like how we naturally want to go left-to-right. There have been a few places where the words read down-to-up, so it took me a minute to understand where I'm supposed to start. The most obvious place is the "oh baby girl / im gonna keep / ... / deep breath" stanza. I think what doesn't help is that previously some lines are juuuust above one another. For example:
why don't you just check the syllabus?
i wonder if the words can feel the weight they carry (DOWN)
or if they simply (UP)
f l o a t (DOWN)
This happens a couple more times around that section that by the time I get to the lines "sincerely, / but i guess i can answer it for one more time (DOWN)", my eyes have caught the pattern and subconsciously looked up for the next line, which would be "deep breath". You can invert the "deep breath" stanza so that it reads left-to-right instead, but I do really like the reading down-to-up for this specific case because it's like a representation that you're swimming up and not letting yourself sink. Just something to think about!
Also, this may just be a personal preference, but I'm not the biggest fan of slanted poem lines. Like, the line "but always fall" is slanted perhaps to visually show a fall, but I'd much rather see "but always" in one line then "fall" in another line, with the word fall actually looking like it's falling, similar to what you did with swim and float. Me likey!
Background
I like the idea of having a blue background because of its metaphor to water and drowning, but I think the gradient is a bit overdone to the point that it's hard to read some of the words. Right now, it's also just a nifty background without much poetic implementation, so *zing* IDEA! What about a blue-to-black gradient as a visual representation that you started at the top of a sea but as time goes on, you're drowning and the others (student emailing you) are bringing you down with them, but try as you might to get some air, you're suddenly stuck at the abyss of the deep, deep sea, and your words get more dark and sinister to show this? I rambled a bit there, but hopefully you can see what I mean by 'artistic implementation' of a background. This is also included in an example at the end of the review.
Confusing Parts
I was mostly confused on the order of lines. Is it:
even if it means that
2020 is the year i down. (DOWN)
AND
do you think they could lend me a life raft, or is it already decided that
2020 is the year i down. (UP)
This plays back into the formatting up/down topic I previously mentioned, but if the two quotes above are right, then I think the second one can be more obvious. The placement of the the "do you think ... decided that" line doesn't make it obvious that the next line is "2020 is the year i down." I recommend playing around with the placements of all three lines so your eyes naturally fall into the up/down rhythm.
Visual Example of Changes
It's way easier to show than to tell you, so I quickly implemented some of the changes I suggested into the pic below! (Click on the pic for a bigger, non-resized version.) I only included half the poem totally not because I was lazy, but because I wanted you to take what you like and fill in the rest, yeah totally.
Anyhoots, I hope this helps! Remember that you can always consult a fellow victim of School Is The Best and Worst Thing to Have Happened to Me[TM] if you need to vent. :')
~Carina
<3 
Points: 10085
Reviews: 147
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