Status: seeing where this gets the most love. / last big edit: 2/11/13
Prose On Your Tongue
oo3.
I walk into the side entrance of High Riverbank after driving through the frigid cold half-asleep, and as I glance past faded faces of my drowsy peers I remember just why school was, possibly, the worst place to stick a growing, insecure, uncertain teenager for most of their younger years. My mom and I have had long talks of homeschooling, but when Lilian comes by or Bee phones me up, we both constantly come to the conclusion that I have to stick through high school, no matter how painful it is to pretend you care enough to make lunch-table alliances or classroom partners.
Although it’s nearly 7 in the morning and many of us are holding cups of coffee or cans of energy drinks, the chatter is fairly vibrant and the main hallway is bustling with students, large backpacks on their slouched shoulders and arms wrapped around thick textbooks. As I make my way through many clusters of them, I realize - once again - that my size is frighteningly different compared to most; I’m heads, even shoulders, taller than the freshman, sophomores, and most juniors, beating seniors by maybe a small fraction. But what I have in height even the girls beat in size: two of me can fit, length-wise, in almost three-fourths of the school, and it’s a little embarrassing, admittedly.
I ignore this thought that’s been clawing at me for half of my seventeen years when I find my first block pretty much void of any early birds and try to slip, unnoticed by the teacher, towards the back of the class, where I normally reside to keep away from all the commotion. He looks up from his computer at me, gives a pleasant smile, to which I respond the same, and we’re back in our separate worlds, him typing up a possible-assignment and me fishing desperately through my backpack to make sure I brought one of my millions of poetry books from home.
I read the first, worn page, tracing where my thumb had flickered with the edges a million times over, and I’m lost, lost, until the our teacher’s voice calls for our attention and I look up, realizing that everyone is already seated and 20 minutes has passed, instead of my predetermined 4. “What did we go over yesterday, if any of you remember?” Mr. Larson - my AP Literature teacher - is an older man with a scruff, whitening beard and hair always in messy, white waves, almost like he just got up. But he’s a well-dressed man, always sporting sweater vests in vibrant patterns and crisp dress pants with matching shoes. The way he walks aimlessly across the front of the class with his hands folded behind his straight back, peering at us through his rounded glasses like he were consulting with members of a highly-regarded committee gives off an important air to him that’s a little contagious.
A girl closer to his desk slowly raises her hands into the air, bracelets around her wrist tumbling noisily towards her white elbow. He simply nods in her direction, and she sits a little taller, saying, as if rehearsed, “Yesterday we learned about the different ways authors use literary devices to convey powerful messages.” He smiles graciously at her and it’s like her whole morning has improved, the way she brightens like he flickered a light inside of her head.
“Perfect,” he says none-too-enthusiastically, a very brief inflection in his voice, but that’s the way he speaks, and it isn’t taken personally. Standing behind his podium, he leans on the surface with his elbows and scans the young faces before him. “Can anyone tell me one of the literary devices we covered?”
“Uhh - we covered - uh - amplification . . . ?” One of the bulkier soccer players near the most right corner of the room, closest to the door, speaks without recognition from the teacher. He’s sitting casually in his seat, rocking on the back legs, chewing snappily at a piece of gum. His jaw line is way too sharp and his chin is square, almost, giving him an arrogant sort of demeanor. But Mr. Larson pays no attention to his lack of recognition or mannerisms and nods graciously at him next.
“Ah, yes - amplification,” Mr. Larson says almost excitedly. He straightens his posture again and returns his hands to his lower back, folding his hands. “One of the most important literary devices - in my opinion, that is. Speaking of amplification, I read your creative writing papers last week and many of you lacked this.” He pauses to allow everyone to think back to what they had written. I’m pretty sure of my handiwork, especially since it took me four hours to make sure it was as perfect as I could get it, so I sit a little too smugly in my seat, grinning foolishly to myself. “Does anyone remember what amplification means?”
A girl I recognize as Olivia raises her hand and he nods at her. “Adding more to a sentence to make it more specific and . . . and, um, descriptive. I think.”
“You think correct.” Mr. Larson goes to the touch screen board on the wall and taps to a slide, where an excerpt from a book I don’t think anyone recognizes comes up. “Amplification is especially important in literature; more specifically, ones that requires lots of dialogue.” He turns to us again. “Because we don’t want just all dialogue and no description, correct? Although that depends on the style of the author and how well he - or she - can write a novel with just dialogue.” A playful smile spreads on his thin lips and he quips, “but we’re high school students, not Fitzgerald or Twain, eh?”
He receives a polite laugh, which pleases him, and he proceeds with the lesson. “In your creative writing assignment I wanted to hear exactly what you’re thinking and why; I wanted to truly feel your words and sympathize, rejoice, or even cry with you. There’s - There’s this . . . this magical thing about literature. See - literature is magical. These sentences and words and letters on a piece of paper or on a screen can inspire you, delight you, cause deep retrospect and intervention. This is why literature is powerful and beautiful and deadly at the same time: it elicits thought.” He pauses. “But thought is not always a good thing. Thought is the most destructive thing humankind has ever witnessed. Though we must carry on anyway, and we must write.”
He finishes that section of the day’s lesson and moves on to deeply analyzing passages, but I’ve already lost my will to pay attention. My head is still reeling from his explanation of literature and I feel dizzy, almost. I look down at my open binder and scan aimlessly over the notes I took last Friday, but I can’t read, I can only think, and I can only think to write. Soon enough there are random lines scribbled between definitions and along ridges of my papers, lines of dusty slabs of wood / barricade my lungs / they are stagnant / you’ve taken their strive and i drank too fast / i choked on you, and when i sputtered / stammered / you poured from my mouth and even days fold into themselves / they make a mess, littered on my bedroom floor / but i can search through every one / and find you there.
Nes finds me even when I don’t want to find him; I’m reeling and close to these frustrated tears even as everyone packs up and slings backpacks over their shoulders and shouts across the room before slipping out. The bell rang and I missed it. The lesson finished a while ago and I can’t recall anything but Mr. Larson’s opening lecture, all jumbled up in my mind along with pretty words of Nes’ nature, Nes’ hold on me.
“You’re going to be late for your next block if you don’t get going now,” the teacher says to me jokingly, and I nod dumbly before packing my things and stumbling, weaving, through desks and out into the crowded hallway.
I catch sight of Bee and Sam, tangled in what one another was saying, but I don’t feel up to making myself known to them, so I glide along with the moving bustle and make it to second block just in time for the late bell the ring loudly throughout the building. My second block is an advanced math class, and my teacher is that young type of teacher that loves to assign partner-work for the beginning of every class, so I sit in my usual seat and spend the first 10 minutes doing it alone and the rest reading my poetry book underneath the table. She knows I don’t talk to much of anybody in the classroom; she doesn’t bother to ask me to join another group and instead wanders to everyone else to ask how they’re doing.
That class is a blur of more prose and hopeless daydreams, and when lunch ‘rounds the corner I’m practically the first person in the library. My usual seat is farthest from the front door, around a circular table, so I settle there and unpack my tiny notebook. Ms. York, the elder, bubbly librarian, passes me an excited, unguarded smile, and she says to me, “Well hello there, bookworm,” to which I respond with an uncertain smile and a flick of my awkwardly-cut bangs. “How has your day been?”
“Fine,” I say in the sweetest way I can without sounding so eager as to beckon her from her seat behind her computer desk. It works, and she nods enthusiastically, muttering something along the lines of well - that’s great, and she continues with what she was doing before I arrived.
The two of us work in a few minutes of consensual silence until Lilian and her thin, stretched form pushes the door open with its bone-y shoulder and enters the library. Her waist-length hair is carelessly tied at the nape of her neck, and she’s wearing these black leggings that make her legs look like licorice. Our gazes meet and, although we’ve been more than comfortable with one another for years, smile bashfully. I wait for her to smile at Ms. York, approach the table, and drop her backpack on an empty seat with a thud before I whisper to her, “Hey, Lulu.”
“Dan,” she responds with arrogant-like recognition. But she pushes her seat as close to mine as she can get and lowers her flat bum onto it, touching my thigh with hers. She smells of strong perfume when she leans towards me and brushes my mangled hair affectionately. “You really need a haircut.”
“Bee says it makes me look ‘edgy’,” I laugh silently.
Lilian tries at a fake giggle and rolls her eyes at the same time. “Bee says many things, most of which are incorrect.” She nudges my arm and finishes, voice so soft it’s breathless, “your nose makes you look edgy, though.” When I self-consciously run my index finger over the bump she slaps my hand away and frowns. “Stop that, Dan. It’s the nose of an author; everyone needs something quirky about them.”
“Right,” I say before returning my attention to the half-full notebook I have laid out in front of me. “I’ve written so much all day that now I have nothing that comes to mind.” I sigh to myself, feeling her eyes still on me. “I think I’m going crazy, Lu.”
Lilian laughs and turns to zip open her backpack, reaching long, slender hands in to pull some notebooks out. “We all know that already. You’ve been crazy since you came outta yer crazy mum’s womb.” She drops a textbook on the table loudly and grins evilly at me. “And we all know your mum’s a nutcase.”
I frown at her textbook. “Funny.”
“It’s true. She’s always up to some new gimmick.”
“Well - that’s not what I meant,” I huff. “I mean, I can’t stop thinking . . .—” my eyes glide over to a busy Ms. York as if she really gives two shits about the love antics of a teenage boy. “—about him.”
“You mean Tanner—?” Lilian asks, and I quickly give her an elbow to the ribs. She lets out a screech that’s a little too loud, causing Ms. York to glance at us before returning to work, and Lilian gives me a twist between a glare and a frown. “What the hell, Dan? That hurt!”
I hiss, “then don’t talk so loud and I won’t hit you,” and then we’re both smiling at one another, trying to fight a laugh coming on, but we lose it anyway. Some more students that are awkward little outcasts from self-important lunch tables and cliques in the cafeteria enter and immediately find a computer to log into. Some others wander along the bookshelves, running their hands and their eyes across book spines like children given many new toys. I look at them as my laughter falters and wonder, briefly, if they’re full of many words, too, that are dying to be heard. I wonder if they’re lost, like me.
But then Lilian brushes my upper arm with hers as she flips through the pages of her textbook, humming, and when I look into her face - I see those dark bangs that are caught in her eyelashes; those tiny little eyelashes that frame round, blue eyes; those lips that have lifted my spirits many times again - I feel the most alive that day.
this room of books have words to hear,
and people to hear them from
( and there is no period, because this is a thought that is timeless )
Although it’s nearly 7 in the morning and many of us are holding cups of coffee or cans of energy drinks, the chatter is fairly vibrant and the main hallway is bustling with students, large backpacks on their slouched shoulders and arms wrapped around thick textbooks. As I make my way through many clusters of them, I realize - once again - that my size is frighteningly different compared to most; I’m heads, even shoulders, taller than the freshman, sophomores, and most juniors, beating seniors by maybe a small fraction. But what I have in height even the girls beat in size: two of me can fit, length-wise, in almost three-fourths of the school, and it’s a little embarrassing, admittedly.
I ignore this thought that’s been clawing at me for half of my seventeen years when I find my first block pretty much void of any early birds and try to slip, unnoticed by the teacher, towards the back of the class, where I normally reside to keep away from all the commotion. He looks up from his computer at me, gives a pleasant smile, to which I respond the same, and we’re back in our separate worlds, him typing up a possible-assignment and me fishing desperately through my backpack to make sure I brought one of my millions of poetry books from home.
I read the first, worn page, tracing where my thumb had flickered with the edges a million times over, and I’m lost, lost, until the our teacher’s voice calls for our attention and I look up, realizing that everyone is already seated and 20 minutes has passed, instead of my predetermined 4. “What did we go over yesterday, if any of you remember?” Mr. Larson - my AP Literature teacher - is an older man with a scruff, whitening beard and hair always in messy, white waves, almost like he just got up. But he’s a well-dressed man, always sporting sweater vests in vibrant patterns and crisp dress pants with matching shoes. The way he walks aimlessly across the front of the class with his hands folded behind his straight back, peering at us through his rounded glasses like he were consulting with members of a highly-regarded committee gives off an important air to him that’s a little contagious.
A girl closer to his desk slowly raises her hands into the air, bracelets around her wrist tumbling noisily towards her white elbow. He simply nods in her direction, and she sits a little taller, saying, as if rehearsed, “Yesterday we learned about the different ways authors use literary devices to convey powerful messages.” He smiles graciously at her and it’s like her whole morning has improved, the way she brightens like he flickered a light inside of her head.
“Perfect,” he says none-too-enthusiastically, a very brief inflection in his voice, but that’s the way he speaks, and it isn’t taken personally. Standing behind his podium, he leans on the surface with his elbows and scans the young faces before him. “Can anyone tell me one of the literary devices we covered?”
“Uhh - we covered - uh - amplification . . . ?” One of the bulkier soccer players near the most right corner of the room, closest to the door, speaks without recognition from the teacher. He’s sitting casually in his seat, rocking on the back legs, chewing snappily at a piece of gum. His jaw line is way too sharp and his chin is square, almost, giving him an arrogant sort of demeanor. But Mr. Larson pays no attention to his lack of recognition or mannerisms and nods graciously at him next.
“Ah, yes - amplification,” Mr. Larson says almost excitedly. He straightens his posture again and returns his hands to his lower back, folding his hands. “One of the most important literary devices - in my opinion, that is. Speaking of amplification, I read your creative writing papers last week and many of you lacked this.” He pauses to allow everyone to think back to what they had written. I’m pretty sure of my handiwork, especially since it took me four hours to make sure it was as perfect as I could get it, so I sit a little too smugly in my seat, grinning foolishly to myself. “Does anyone remember what amplification means?”
A girl I recognize as Olivia raises her hand and he nods at her. “Adding more to a sentence to make it more specific and . . . and, um, descriptive. I think.”
“You think correct.” Mr. Larson goes to the touch screen board on the wall and taps to a slide, where an excerpt from a book I don’t think anyone recognizes comes up. “Amplification is especially important in literature; more specifically, ones that requires lots of dialogue.” He turns to us again. “Because we don’t want just all dialogue and no description, correct? Although that depends on the style of the author and how well he - or she - can write a novel with just dialogue.” A playful smile spreads on his thin lips and he quips, “but we’re high school students, not Fitzgerald or Twain, eh?”
He receives a polite laugh, which pleases him, and he proceeds with the lesson. “In your creative writing assignment I wanted to hear exactly what you’re thinking and why; I wanted to truly feel your words and sympathize, rejoice, or even cry with you. There’s - There’s this . . . this magical thing about literature. See - literature is magical. These sentences and words and letters on a piece of paper or on a screen can inspire you, delight you, cause deep retrospect and intervention. This is why literature is powerful and beautiful and deadly at the same time: it elicits thought.” He pauses. “But thought is not always a good thing. Thought is the most destructive thing humankind has ever witnessed. Though we must carry on anyway, and we must write.”
He finishes that section of the day’s lesson and moves on to deeply analyzing passages, but I’ve already lost my will to pay attention. My head is still reeling from his explanation of literature and I feel dizzy, almost. I look down at my open binder and scan aimlessly over the notes I took last Friday, but I can’t read, I can only think, and I can only think to write. Soon enough there are random lines scribbled between definitions and along ridges of my papers, lines of dusty slabs of wood / barricade my lungs / they are stagnant / you’ve taken their strive and i drank too fast / i choked on you, and when i sputtered / stammered / you poured from my mouth and even days fold into themselves / they make a mess, littered on my bedroom floor / but i can search through every one / and find you there.
Nes finds me even when I don’t want to find him; I’m reeling and close to these frustrated tears even as everyone packs up and slings backpacks over their shoulders and shouts across the room before slipping out. The bell rang and I missed it. The lesson finished a while ago and I can’t recall anything but Mr. Larson’s opening lecture, all jumbled up in my mind along with pretty words of Nes’ nature, Nes’ hold on me.
“You’re going to be late for your next block if you don’t get going now,” the teacher says to me jokingly, and I nod dumbly before packing my things and stumbling, weaving, through desks and out into the crowded hallway.
I catch sight of Bee and Sam, tangled in what one another was saying, but I don’t feel up to making myself known to them, so I glide along with the moving bustle and make it to second block just in time for the late bell the ring loudly throughout the building. My second block is an advanced math class, and my teacher is that young type of teacher that loves to assign partner-work for the beginning of every class, so I sit in my usual seat and spend the first 10 minutes doing it alone and the rest reading my poetry book underneath the table. She knows I don’t talk to much of anybody in the classroom; she doesn’t bother to ask me to join another group and instead wanders to everyone else to ask how they’re doing.
That class is a blur of more prose and hopeless daydreams, and when lunch ‘rounds the corner I’m practically the first person in the library. My usual seat is farthest from the front door, around a circular table, so I settle there and unpack my tiny notebook. Ms. York, the elder, bubbly librarian, passes me an excited, unguarded smile, and she says to me, “Well hello there, bookworm,” to which I respond with an uncertain smile and a flick of my awkwardly-cut bangs. “How has your day been?”
“Fine,” I say in the sweetest way I can without sounding so eager as to beckon her from her seat behind her computer desk. It works, and she nods enthusiastically, muttering something along the lines of well - that’s great, and she continues with what she was doing before I arrived.
The two of us work in a few minutes of consensual silence until Lilian and her thin, stretched form pushes the door open with its bone-y shoulder and enters the library. Her waist-length hair is carelessly tied at the nape of her neck, and she’s wearing these black leggings that make her legs look like licorice. Our gazes meet and, although we’ve been more than comfortable with one another for years, smile bashfully. I wait for her to smile at Ms. York, approach the table, and drop her backpack on an empty seat with a thud before I whisper to her, “Hey, Lulu.”
“Dan,” she responds with arrogant-like recognition. But she pushes her seat as close to mine as she can get and lowers her flat bum onto it, touching my thigh with hers. She smells of strong perfume when she leans towards me and brushes my mangled hair affectionately. “You really need a haircut.”
“Bee says it makes me look ‘edgy’,” I laugh silently.
Lilian tries at a fake giggle and rolls her eyes at the same time. “Bee says many things, most of which are incorrect.” She nudges my arm and finishes, voice so soft it’s breathless, “your nose makes you look edgy, though.” When I self-consciously run my index finger over the bump she slaps my hand away and frowns. “Stop that, Dan. It’s the nose of an author; everyone needs something quirky about them.”
“Right,” I say before returning my attention to the half-full notebook I have laid out in front of me. “I’ve written so much all day that now I have nothing that comes to mind.” I sigh to myself, feeling her eyes still on me. “I think I’m going crazy, Lu.”
Lilian laughs and turns to zip open her backpack, reaching long, slender hands in to pull some notebooks out. “We all know that already. You’ve been crazy since you came outta yer crazy mum’s womb.” She drops a textbook on the table loudly and grins evilly at me. “And we all know your mum’s a nutcase.”
I frown at her textbook. “Funny.”
“It’s true. She’s always up to some new gimmick.”
“Well - that’s not what I meant,” I huff. “I mean, I can’t stop thinking . . .—” my eyes glide over to a busy Ms. York as if she really gives two shits about the love antics of a teenage boy. “—about him.”
“You mean Tanner—?” Lilian asks, and I quickly give her an elbow to the ribs. She lets out a screech that’s a little too loud, causing Ms. York to glance at us before returning to work, and Lilian gives me a twist between a glare and a frown. “What the hell, Dan? That hurt!”
I hiss, “then don’t talk so loud and I won’t hit you,” and then we’re both smiling at one another, trying to fight a laugh coming on, but we lose it anyway. Some more students that are awkward little outcasts from self-important lunch tables and cliques in the cafeteria enter and immediately find a computer to log into. Some others wander along the bookshelves, running their hands and their eyes across book spines like children given many new toys. I look at them as my laughter falters and wonder, briefly, if they’re full of many words, too, that are dying to be heard. I wonder if they’re lost, like me.
But then Lilian brushes my upper arm with hers as she flips through the pages of her textbook, humming, and when I look into her face - I see those dark bangs that are caught in her eyelashes; those tiny little eyelashes that frame round, blue eyes; those lips that have lifted my spirits many times again - I feel the most alive that day.
this room of books have words to hear,
and people to hear them from
( and there is no period, because this is a thought that is timeless )