The start of a new story.

Prologue


It’s not like anyone cares about the musings of a seventeen year old, but I’ll still talk as if you and I both care about what’s going on in the world around us. If you’re still a minor and going to school, then you know the structured lives we live. Bell at this time, lunch at that time, the bus takes this route, etc. etc. It’s painful when all you want to do is grow up and finally reach that level of personal pride you’ve been waiting for all your life.
It’s unfair; sitting in history for ninety-six minutes everyday, taking notes off of a PowerPoint that was haphazardly put together the night before after your teacher got done having certain relations with their husband or girlfriend or whoever the hell they happen to be screwing on a Tuesday night.
History is death.
Mr. Abrasley doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. He comes in everyday after the students arrive, trying to catch papers as they fall through the gap of his open briefcase. His glasses fall down constantly, to which he responds with a “huff” and the classic nerd, finger push up on the brim. The new student looks like she’s either disgusted with his unorganized mannerisms, or slightly aroused.
For my sanity, I am going to go with disgusted.
The sad thing about Abrasley is that he is a young man- just out of college, has a really attractive voice- just not the personality to fit it. The new chick just sits, perched in her desk like a baby bird, watching him, waiting to be fed. Her hair swoops across her stone face creating a wall between her eyes and his.
While she gazed in his direction, I watched the second hand tick around the radius of the clock. The blue outline was glowing in the florescent moon of the classroom.
The bell rang with delight. School is out of session. People who cannot speak coherently are out of my hair; people who are afraid of a self-expressive teen have dispersed; seniors and freshman can be separated based on the ability to drive rather than the thin line between maturity levels; I can return to my cave that awaits for me in the afternoon heat.
The halls empty quickly except the drug dealers that are left standing around waiting for their appointments. I walked back down the long corridor to a previous class to retrieve my ride from the holds of her fourth block teacher. My shoes hit against the linoleum floor like a cricket’s musical wings. I found myself standing in the threshold, starring off into an abyss while I watched my best friend converse with her teacher as if she was an adult. They talked about the class and the progress some students where making while my presence became less and less important, as if I too were an invisible man.

Untitled

I lie awake

wishing

for a way
to be two places
at once, so
I
could just

touch you--

to outline your face,
memorizing the curves.

To feel

your touch
again
would be like

honey

that collects
the dry wheat

that hangs

in my
burning
throat.