Seat 98. The same dense, creamy chair I've been sitting in since August.
Every Tuesday, every Thursday. This amphitheater is always so cold. My first day I searched for the biggest hole, the deepest gape. Seat 98 was a shining beacon, an empty four chair radius circling my focus. And so it remains, a void in the middle of two hundred students. I feel so reclusive, so withdrawn. Does this officially make me antisocial? Who would have guessed? Student body president, captain of the cheer squad, Valedictorian. Remote, reserved, dissolving. I hate that it echoes in here.
Seat 96 illuminates itself with thick, black numbers. It would be so simple to slide over, be a few feet closer to civilization. I like it here, I like this hole. It's familiar, a leaf tornado. Three rows down. A tall boy with vein-filled hands and ocean eyes. I've seen you before. I peer into his bag. Chewing gum, headphones, a crumpled receipt. This is an invasion of privacy. I look into my own bag. Leather gloves, a Tazo tea packet, pens, pens, pens. I always pictured the inside of my head to look like this. Stop comparing. My thoughts have redundantly been returning to moronic questions. Why are healthier foods more expensive? Because being healthy is the new fad? Growing up vegan erased all novelty of this green craze. Why does this matter to me...? Is it eight o clock yet? I'm three blackboards behind. I want to go home. I miss Mother. I miss Jackson.
Mostly though, I miss the drive. The hour long drive. We used to make this commute three times a week. Once doesn't seem enough right now. I miss having time to think. I hate that I have to set that time aside. Don't interpret details while you're driving, you'll kill us. I glance at blue lights. Too fast, I'm going 95. Am I home yet? Pressed leaves fall from my journal every time I open to write. I should tape them in. No, no. I secretly love watching them fall out. The maple from November fifth is beloved, I believe it was red once. I found it after it had been rained upon, then bleached by the sun. My watercolor leaf. To tape you in would be inhumane. Let them fall. I long for raspberry rosebuds, wallpaper pallets.
My mind conceives bizarre concepts when I'm half awake.
I feel half awake. I'm a winter seed.
My mind conceives bizarre concepts when I'm half awake.
I feel half awake. I'm a winter seed.
Your words bring back my past at my university and the smallness that I felt. Such huge lecture halls and so many notes from so many professors. Do I remember any words from them? No, but I do remember the smell of the radiators fighting off the cold that seeped through the old wooden window frames. I remember becoming too stuffy and peeling off layers until I was just right; only to have to gather all the wool and colors up again when class was dismissed.
ReplyDeleteI do have another memory of that lecture hall. There was an old wooden chair that some long ago professor had left in the corner. One carefree, careless day I took the chair with me and it has been part of my home ever since. An impulse to take the chair and the encouragement/dare from my friend fortified me. I walked off campus as if I was suppose to have the chair and no one questioned me.
A chair and a Master's Degree.
Sometimes I value the chair more as it is a symbol of my youthful bravado.