Scout E.S. in the Shadows

And you know you’ve been set up. You know that you’ve been raised on the defense. You know you had no chance from the start. But you pretend that you are focused. You pretend that their calls don’t tempt you. You pretend you don’t sit staring at their pictures regretting your decisions. So, you walk with your head high. You block them out before they can have the courage to enter your heart. You don’t give them access to who you are. Break, on the dawn. Mend, at sunset. Dissolve, at dusk. Watch the pieces run down the drain as you wash them away.  Watch your reflection disappear in muddy puddles. Watch the sun rise again knowing nothing will change. Dissolving into your dreams, ask yourself how they let themselves into your home. How your mind became weak, how you wondered what a lack of loneliness must feel like. How they are not what you want, but their silhouette is something you could get used to. How the idea of them is intriguing, intoxicating, incomparable. Twist them into the p

                The sweet smell of chrysanthemums and lilies drew stale as they sat alone in dark rooms. You could hear the light tapping of the petals as they hit the table below them, alone like the person who purchased them for half price on a gloomy Sunday afternoon. Their seeds plop below into the salty water that loses its sweetness as the sugar escapes into the air for survival. Despite the scents and sounds of the bouquets, I only know they sit in the other room when the air is bitter and silent. When I hear my mother’s footsteps pacing as she waits for her brother’s call, for an escape from the life she rushed to choose. When I hear my father’s clacking, forever ungrateful to the sacrifices of my mother, pouring whatever is left of himself in the work that gives nothing in return. And as one enters a room, the other exits and I sit watching the petals fall. They curl and wither with every second of silence, whispering about the freedoms both of my parents have lost because o

Focus. Carry yourself through the movements and the rhythms, the light and the dark, the sun and the moon shining on you as you stare into the sky every night and every day, not for answers but for distractions. Carry me away, you tell the stars. Carry me away because I can’t focus. Get used to the silence, to the droning of the wind like the sky, telling the world to remember you when you can’t remember the person you were just last week. Focus on the voices that enter the beats of the wind and stars as they sing to you. As they tell you to focus. Chase the pavements, chase the promises they tell you as you skin your knees. Someone was just around the corner, you tell yourself. Someone who could tell you to focus, someone who couldn’t sync themselves with the sun, the stars, and the wind. You remember them, but will you remember you? Your rhythms are defined by their shadow, incapable of finding their definition without the sounds of others. In this atmosphere, you pour yourself. You

  Experience teaches you that there is no such thing as a good or a bad person; there are only people who will hurt you and people who won’t. Labels and gossip often deceive us; we let the elementary judgments of others play into our logic. Their words are too imperceptive to gain value over analyzing their treatment of others and their treatment of you. When I walk on dark empty roads, I constantly look over my shoulder, wondering if there is someone following me. It is not because I know that someone is there, but it is because I know someone could be there. The same logic is applied to the nature of people. I am not cautious because I know they will hurt me; I am cautious because I know that they can. I suppose that is the logic that causes people to build walls and trenches around themselves. I gave up on understanding why people hurt others, and what they do to deserve such treatment. People are not mirrors, they are puddles; they do not copy treatment, but rather they warp it int