Scout on Expectations/Roots

Sat in this room I stare into the eyes of empty souls

Outside of my vision, they are but holes

The chair melts into the curves of my bones

And I can feel myself drown in their groans

Whispers shatter my ears and screams repair them

I understand nothing, not even where I came from

Couldn’t they see that I am so numb

Rise out of the cramped air of these 4 walls

The first command I can’t follow as the smoke drowns their calls

Hear this, see this, feel this, love this

The words may lift from my notebook

Yet they are still scored in the gradebook

I will pretend they matter as I pretend I care

The pressure of their expectation as engrained as the roots of my hair

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Scout on Cycles/Without Fail

And so I return, back to the black and white letters and the soft clacking of the keyboard. I return after the rejection of my fragility, knowing now that the escape is temporary. How can I find meaning in this obscure trouble? How can I continue to be angry at the fleeting wind? When all is said in done, I sit in crowded rooms alone and listen to phones ring without an answer. I look around only to count how many people have run from me, mistreated me, and spit on my name. Shallow walls swallow me in whenever I walk, cloudy air consumes my sentences whenever I speak. That pit in my stomach doesn’t leave because it is my soul; broken, abused, self-pitying, and pathetic, but still my soul. It and I long for the day that it will be free to find its purpose. Today, I watched the breeze shuffle through the leaves, and I remembered the days when I would stare up at it and wonder if it was all the same. Every road had trees almost exactly alike, which I learned from...

Scout on Siblings/ Mazes in the Chinese Church

The mind chooses the worst times to be vacant. Not a single thought came to my mind on the day I left. I looked, I ate, I walked, but I can hardly remember thinking anything at all. It was never like that before, when my brother and I 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. 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 I so deeply wanted. Now, I have access...

Scout on Trying/Mud

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...

Scout E.S. in the Shadows

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