Scout E.S. in the Shadows

                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...

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...

   I tell myself that it’s just one of those nights. When every letter on the page was a waste of space, when the paper was better off empty than when I decided to infect it with my useless thoughts. The tangents run on their own, taking up space but never solidifying into anything of value. Every step I take shakes the ground with the weight of my insignificance. How heavy it must be to be so light, so shallow, so soulless. I go on, I became so uninhabited that gravity itself cannot ground me on this Earth. I look up at the sky and I see myself, my thoughts, every good and bad deed I have ever done disappearing above me, looking for the soul they belong to. I scream at them, at the fruit of my existence, at my anxieties, but to my voice they are deaf. I stare into the eyes of my love, but to my body they are blind. I empty my cards to try to buy an ounce of importance, but to my contribution they are ignorant. I shove my achievements in their face, knowing none of them matt...

  It’s a bit dustier here A lot more orange Just like the Hollywood movies made it seem Although, there are fewer men with weapons Less evil than it looked Maybe they didn’t want us to know that there was love In the air Because when I look at this land I see rich people Rich in love And hope And humor And I realize that the problem wasn’t the soil but the people on it And I see the distance I have from understanding that Because I have been taught to be selfish And I have been taught that community is unreliable But here where the buildings crumble The Sun is brighter because these people have earned it When I return, I’m not sure what I have missed But I am sure it is not the same I am sure our minds are a bit tighter A bit less tolerable And I am sure that they have been mistaken Because the land isn’t gray Like it feels And the land isn’t evil on their screens As it feels to me But the soil isn’t the problem It is me; the ...

      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...

Where does it go? For years I sit and wonder where it has traveled To what ends has it walked In what oceans has it swam What blood has it watched drip into streets With nothing but a tear In acknowledgement The potential That I was congratulated for Told I was superior Told I was meant For something greater But the definition of greatness Is chosen by them Without fail, it is and always will be Money… Their definition That decides what humanity is That decide who Deserves humanity That decides who is human Their definition That decides what intelligence is That decide who Can be intelligent That decides who is intelligent Their definition That decides what success is That decide where Success must be achieved That decides who is successful Their system That keeps you Sitting… Silent… Scared… But never Successful Their system That pushes you Slowly From your path To theirs Their system That gets yo...