Skip to main content

Scout on Standards/Thursday

 

I don’t need their theme to play in the background. I don’t need to hear their whispers to know they speak about me. I don’t need to hear their footsteps to know they run from me. I don’t need anything. I can hear the tapping of the clock just fine, the drums just fine, the stomping just fine, the waves just fine. I don’t want to be able to read their lips or know the length of their stride. The drums are loud enough to drown out the sound of my ignorance. They asked me what I thought about love, and I told them I didn’t want it. Because the ones who told me they loved me whispered and ran and sang in the background of my misery.

I heard their sultry piano on a long Wednesday afternoon. They drowned the clock, moving backward, and the drums blasting a Phil Collins song. I shook my head, hoping that my eardrums could come loose and my feet could plant roots immune to my temptations. The smooth solo drifted through the hardly open window, and I forgot what I did and didn’t need. I promised myself it would be the last time I would be fooled by the growing heat in my heart. The notes floated down the flight of stairs, and I with them, down to the streets full of skyscrapers fighting for what could only be God’s real estate, knowing that the intoxicating theme of the piano would beat both out. Hot air and the smell of burnt hot dogs with watered-down coffee carry me to the apartment I had avoided like my true desires. Enter, they call out to me, enter, because we know you can’t resist the comforting fall from paradise. In their yellow walls, I revel in the sound of their conniving whispers, their disgusted steps, and the bored tunes of the creaking piano.

We love you, they tell me, and I know the reason I returned wasn’t because I believed them but because I couldn’t resist the feeling that this was the brightest room I deserved to be in. Sure, the yellow matched the mustard of the hot dogs, and the floors the watery coffee, but I liked the familiarity of it. I’d gotten a peek into a neighbor’s room once, and the pristine white was blinding, deafening, overwhelming. Here, the scratchy piano and cracking laughs weren’t out of my league. I owned just enough real estate in the sky to fly here, and no one could make me feel like I hadn’t earned it. I want their theme, whispers, and footsteps. I need the ticking of the clock, the drums, and the stomping of the feet. Let them all fight for my mind on Thursday. Today, this yellow room is enough. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Scout on Maturity/Broken Glass

  On the other side of the glass, I see the perfect version of myself. She walks with a skip in her step, and nothing about herself keeps her up at night or down in the morning. Everyone she knows loves her, and she finds a way to love them back. She has everything, she is everything, and her confidence is unwavering. The days behind the glass are long because they’re spent clawing at myself until I bleed. Why can’t you feel like them, love them like them, be loved like them? I hate when my reflection is too clear, when those eyes look as if they’ve rejected the idea of happiness. The glass breaks. At the shift of my image, I get angry with myself. You, in all your light and life and experience, sit here digging holes through yourself because you don’t fit a perfect mold? You sit here hating the color of your skin, your eyes, your hair, your body, your face, when you have everything to be grateful for? The wall shatters onto me, destroying the person that I ruthlessly despised, a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Scout on Disconnect/Letters

  I wrote you a letter, but you never responded. I guess I could summarize it here, but you might not be able to get the original sentiment. It’s more of the fact that I can’t remember exactly how I felt when I wrote it, or what I felt that entire year, to be honest. I know who was there and, most importantly, who wasn’t, and that I was absent, at least mentally. Sometimes I look back and wonder what would have happened if I weren’t me, if I did things like all the people around me, who everyone says are more reasonable and level-headed. The truth is that I’m sorry about how I treated you. You never deserved to be ignored or taken for granted, but I can’t say that you didn’t set it up for yourself. Watching those people trample you and waiting so long to leave, it was as if you thought you couldn’t do better. Maybe you couldn’t, and maybe you still can’t, but there has to be more out there. If you weren’t so angry and rash all the time, then- no, I didn’t mean that, not completely....
Post a Comment
Read more

Scout on Memories/In the Stars

  I wanted to write a story about you. That’s why I ran down to Chan’s Grocery so late at night; I needed to get one of those stupid drinks you love to try and trigger a memory. It was something you had said on one of the days we sat outside of the little shop, with its blinding lights hitting our backs in the dark street. I was always in the light when I was with you, inside and out. Anyway, that day we were laughing so hard that people thought we were drunk. You had spit out your drink so far that it practically hit a moving car, which made us laugh harder and stumble back into the store to buy more, much to the amusement of the teenage cashier. Well, I forgot what had made us laugh so hard, so I thought that sitting here and drinking that terrible sugary concoction might bring it back into my mind. The cashier is different, much older and more tired, so I hope I don’t have to hysterically repurchase anything. I’m not sure if time is messing with my head, but sitting here, the li...
Post a Comment
Read more