Scout E.S. in the Shadows

  The mud was the first sign. It was freezing outside, and I couldn’t find my gloves, so I tried to push the ice away from my car with my bare hands. They were numb, but it felt good. I was told my car would have trouble because of the ice, but it was the mud that kept swallowing it back into the ditch. I think that sums up maturing pretty well because what people tell you will be a problem almost never is. The ‘virtues’ of life come in as Trojan horses, and I naively let them in with an open heart and a blank mind. My mind was blank then, too, when I was pressing the gas as hard as I could, and instead of moving, I was treated with the fine smell of gas and burnt rubber. They told me to get rid of the mud so I could get out, but I couldn’t get rid of the mud unless the car got out. I was met with the same paradox that my therapist had presented me with: to become happy, you must practice the things you love, but I could only practice the things I loved once I was happy. Eventual...

So, let’s dance. Tonight, and forever, alone like the north star far in the future. You’ll follow it one day like you promised, but tonight, it isn’t that night. You will sit and stare at it tonight, hoping you are on the way to something. It’s fun to imagine an idealist reality where the theory of what is right is, and when wrong is clear enough for a child to recognize. The truth is that most adults can’t distinguish between wrong and right, and all people are a contradicting pile of opinions and actions.  Sometimes, you let people define every part of yourself, and sometimes, you look back and realize that they also have no idea who they are. You can look into their eyes from across a room and feel like they’re the most powerful and all-knowing beings, but those gazes are far shallower than they seem. It’s apparent when they speak, but from a distance, their eyes will be on an undeserving pedestal with their soul. I made a list to make sure that no one’s opinion would sit above ...

The mind chooses the worst times to be vacant. On the day I left, not a single thought came to my mind. I looked, I ate, I walked, but I can hardly remember thinking anything at all. It was never like that before, when me and my brother ran through mazes alone, finding each other and nothing else for years on end. I don’t think I thought anything then either, but I wish I did so that I could remember those times. The places and people that became so far away now engulf my mind when they have become so out of reach. I can still feel those memories, in a distant corner of my heart that gets warm when anything vaguely familiar is nearby. Sometimes in my dreams, I run through the mazes looking for the old him, for the old me, for something that feels right. Now I feel mature and intelligent, but I felt those things then too, even if I wasn’t. I feel wrong and right, but I simply want to feel that time. When I lingered at boards with art, writing, festivals, and any semblance of life that...

Smooth slopes to travel down For the dripping tears rarely released My blank face in its reflection Dumbfounded by her reaction To my question She turns around To hide what you can see in her eyes The image of her sons, brothers, fathers, and uncles Wrapped in white cloth By the thousands In her choked cries I hear their voices before they become a memory   Smooth slopes to travel down For the people who ignore her tears For the people who ignore the men wrapped by the thousands In her voice, I think back, they weren’t the grunts of men They were laughs of children Cries of newborn babies Wrap yourself in warm white clothes Don’t forget that your position Is a privilege   Smooth slopes to travel down For my tears when I’m alone Not created by the thousands of wrapped bodies But by the turning of their cheeks At the sight of a people’s disappearance   Smooth slopes to travel down For people who think souls aren’t ...

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 t...

                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, whis...