New School
I thought about the poem I submitted here the other day and figured I should at least sort out the bare threads of context so as to clothe the raw rhyming lines of “The Place I Left.”
August 5, 2010, I took a bus that was not a mile from my house nor even half of mile from my house but perhaps about 200 feet from my house at the entrance to my neighborhood. The school this bus took me to was only 4 miles away from my home, less than an hour’s walk.
I board the bus and only three turns later I’m stepping out onto the asphalt, the bus lot of a new school.
The bus ride is short but dull. I am surrounded by indistinct chatter and an unanimated bus driver. I recall my old bus driver, a very nice lady who aged well and knew the names of all her passengers. A very nice lady who, like myself, was an artist. In the days past, I’d sit in the front of the bus just to talk with my old bus driver, the very nice lady who would smile, spoil us like sweet little kids, and look at my artwork.
August 5. 8:15 AM. I’m apparently late to school this very first day. Or very nearly late. Class would start in 5 minutes. I rush through the halls; 5 minutes time is nary enough for a lost student. But it’s the first day and teachers are lenient with tardies.
In my homeroom, I recognize some faces. These faces are the ones I left when two years ago I chose to attend a “magnet” high school 20 miles away from my house. These faces are nothing but faces and names to me though, and to them, I am likewise nothing but a name and face.
Same indistinct chattering steals the air in homeroom. The hallways, too, give way to the clutter of small talk as teenagers reunite with the friends they didn’t get to hang out with over summer.
A sense of superficial loneliness engulfs me. Something about being a face in the crowd, detached from the network around me.
I smile a little at my foolish fickle thoughts. I smile a little at the people who pass by me and turn me even a sideways glance. Amongst the people I pass, there’s the occasional acknowledgment of recognition. From those good old Middle School days.
I meet my teachers. They’re a nice lot of people. I’m a transfer student, so I don’t have my transcript. I get to skip out on the part where teachers, supposedly only glancing for prerequisites, judge me by my past grades.
I decide I’ll just mindlessly smile and hope I make some new friends.
October 5. 3:25 PM. School is out, and I am walking in a hallway toward my bus. I decided to skip Latin Club today, in spite of the weekly Tuesday meetings I chose to attend. Maybe I should have attended, but I chose my course in a passing jiffy.
Two full months now I’ve gone to this new school. Academically, some things are different here, but most things that matter are the same. I did a decent job of blending into the crowd though I’ve made some friends. Or really, rather, I’ve been polite to many and received the reciprocation.
The classes are a cakewalk, but it’s more my scheduling than anything. AP curriculum doesn’t change by the school, regardless of academic reputation.
I checked out a few books from the school library the other day and figured I’d do some studying of my own. So reading Watchmen, the comic book, I reach my consensus:
Maybe my old school had a reputation for being more academically competitive than this one, but my actions rather than environment have always been the primary factor in my success.
October 5, 2010 at 5:49 pm | Lifepost | No comments
The Place I Left
There is a world that no longer exists,
Yet upon my mind still persists.
Where familiar faces know my name
And nostalgic places stay the same.
Mine, a world with a culture bright.
For which I should’ve fought a greater fight
Because that daily hall of smiles
Was worth the constant traveled miles.
Theirs, the world of people I left.
Who always wrapped in constant cares
May only superficially recall memories kept
Before making little history with other peers.
There is a world that never did exist,
Yet in my mind shall ever persist
As a golden ideal of a bygone past
That really never was meant to last.
October 4, 2010 at 8:35 pm | Poetry | No comments