Month: June 2019

Tuesday, May 26th 2015

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Today I was shaken awake in the middle of the night by my mother. She seemed frantic and since nothing made sense to me then, I just followed her outside into the courtyard assuming it was another earthquake until I realized nothing was shaking.

“What is it this time Mama?” I asked her, furious that my sleep had been disturbed again.

“Shut up stupid, I boiled some water so you could take a shower today, remember, today is Tuesday, there won’t be any electrify all day today,” my mother reminded me in her usual tone.

She pointed at the bucket sitting by the small tin stove and I rushed to pick it up.  I no longer was angry about my sleep being ruined. In fact I felt happy about the fact that I was lucky enough to get TWO warm showers this week, usually I don’t even get one.  I went back to bed with a good feeling in my heart. Today was going to be a good day even without electricity.

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My alarm went off as usual at 8:00am. I got up, took a shower and got ready for school. I went downstairs to see my breakfast was already prepared for me, french toast; my favorite.  My parents must’ve already left for work so I called my best friend to pick me up, but she called me before I called her.

“I’m waiting outside your house bro, hurry up.” A found myself smiling as I thought of how well she knew me.

I rushed out the door and hopped into her car.

“Did you finish the assignment,” she asked me as we drove to school.

“Yeah man, you need it?” I asked knowing all too well she did, given that she was out partying last night.

“Ahah duh, just do it for me right now okay, I owe you,” she said

Being the good friend I am, I did her assignment and managed to finish it before we got to school. My friend stopped on the way for a coffee and got me one too.

This was a typical morning for me, but for some reason something felt out of place today. As we parked in the student parking lot and the school building loomed over us, I realized with horror that I didn’t study for the math test today. I did the stupid assignment, but forget to study for the damn test.

Today was going to be a horrible day.

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I am the silent water of the eyes

Falling another drop as another dream dies

Drop by drop, I will become a river

And alone in the night, you will shiver

As you feel me crashing against your stone heart

Hard as it is, it will surely break apart

You will weep so bitterly alone

Wondering how water could possibly crack stone

You will simply watch every time the river will crash

Reducing your stone heart to nothing but ash

By then you will feel as if you’ve drowned

Unaware that you’ve actually been crowned

From these very ashes you will rise

As this salty water dries

You will leave the world mesmerized

Once they’ve realized

That you, my dear are a Phoenix,

A creature strengthened by its critics

 

This poem was inspired from one of the river walks, the one where we were supposed to pick a person to watch through the eyes of a writer. The women I picked was a guitarist who was sitting on the patio singing in a beautiful voice. One of the lyrics that caught my ear and eventually my interest was, “Phoenix in the Water.” As a writer, I could go in countless directions with these few words, so I chose to write a poem.  Basically the poem is about a strong and tough individual that seems unbreakable. This is what the stone heart symbolizes; a sturdy individual. The water in this poem is symbolic of outside hate and pressure. The fact that it starts out as a silent tear drop and becomes a roaring river that is able to break something as hard as rock is reflective of the idea that it does not simply take one mean comment or one act of bullying to hurt someone but, rather the consistency of these horrible things that make strong individuals with potential fall apart and break.  The idea that a beautiful and majestic bird, a Phoenix rises from a pitiful pile of ash is symbolic of the idea that the best things and the best people have seen and experienced the hardest things. So, in a nutshell this poem is about someone who has gone through a tough time only to come out stronger and better.  You could essentially take away two things from this poem. The first is that with consistency an individual can accomplish anything (positive or negative) and the second is that our hardships mold us into better and stronger beings than we were before.

 

 

Riding home that late afternoon in June on the train from downtown with almost too many shopping bags and a cup of ice cream for each of us, laughing  and exchanging lively conversations along with a few roasts here and there was the last time the three of us were together in the same place. We didn’t know it then, but I’m not sure we would’ve done anything differently even if we did.

We had picked up our report cards the day before, happy to know we had once again gotten through the year with decent grades and a whole ton of great memories. High school just kept getting better and better. Eleventh grade was better than tenth grade and there was no doubt that twelfth grade would be the best year of high school. How could it not be? We were going to be seniors next year! There was always a charm associated with that word, a sense of superiority and accomplishment and not to mention, a whole lot of fun. There was senior ditch day, senior prank and of course graduation! We were all going to graduate together.  We would throw our grad caps and feel them rain down upon us, the whole sensation would be topped off with the deafening cheer of achievement. We would feel that moment together.

We decided to hang out the whole day together in downtown the day after we got our report cards.  We spent the entire day shopping, eating, taking pictures (only a few of which that would end up being main worthy). We did our fair share of fooling around too, but most importantly we talked. We talked about anything and everything; clothes, food, celebrities, guys, movies, books. We told secrets and stories, we discussed our lives, our aspirations for the future, our plans for the summer and the list could go on forever.  I told them that my family had planned on going for a three week vacation, camping out west by the mountains and visiting family friends along the way.  Amber had gotten a part time job and planned on spending her summer working and saving up while Ariana planned on catching up on every Netflix show there was. We had made plans to go paint balling soon after I would come back. Little did we know that we would never go paint balling that summer much less even graduate together.

While I was away having a great time by the mountains with my family, Ariana’s  father had been appointed a higher position in his field, he got a new job on the other side of the country. It was well paying too, Ariana kept sending pictures  of what her penthouse would look like and she said there would be people waiting on her, basically anything you could imagine of a rich and lavish lifestyle. I was happy for my best friend, obviously I was, she was going to be living a life full of luxury, but that didn’t change how much I was going to miss her and how her absence would be felt a great deal whenever I hung out with a group of friends from then on. I planned on saying good bye as soon as I got back, but by the time I got back she was long gone to her new home, her new life in a new place with new people. I never even got to say good bye. As for Amber and I, things weren’t about to go on the same way as they used to either. Two teachers at our current school were convicted of sexual assault and there was no way our parents were about to send us back there.  Amber got sent to a well reputed school located a 2 hour bus ride from her home and I got sent to a private school that had been ranked the #1 high school in the whole city for the past ten years. To be quite honest I had good expectations, after all I had heard amazing things about my new school.  At that point I wasn’t too depressed about not spending senior year with my best friends. Amber and I could still hang out whenever we wanted and as for Ariana, we called everyday. It almost felt like she wasn’t so far away. Almost.  I didn’t notice it then but a small gap had opened up inside me, my hopes slowly falling and disappearing  into it one by one.

I was wrong about many things that summer because I had stood firmly by the hope that senior year would be the best year of high school.  Maybe not as good as I imagined without my best friends, but everyone said senior year was the best. Why would I be any different? It didn’t occur to me then that the people I would be going to school with that September would turn out to be an entirely different breed of high school kids that would crush all my hopes for my last year of high school. The last year before we would step out into the real world.

To Be Continued…