pairs://form

pairs://form (may 21, 2024)

incomprehensible confessions of a terribly lonely sophomore in high school

On my bedside table: a vase of slowly decaying flowers (still bright with splotches of color), two glasses with two straws (one red and one yellow, stretched out too long to fit in the glasses), two cans of flat seltzer water, two bottles of medication, and two empty film canisters. Everything comes in pairs simply as a reminder of what could have been, had I left my thoughts to myself. 

Summer arrived and all I could do was sit in solitary rumination. No footprints on the street to lead me down another path I was never meant for. No strings attached to my fingertips marking every touch and staining my vision.

No colors new, no colors at all, none depicting the vibrance I lost.

One day into summer my bed turns into a sea. Flashing white waves pull me under, wash me up. On the shore [the floor] I lay motionless waiting for the next blow.

“Summer is here and I am stuck in my own thoughts.”

A voice broke the silence. My own. Talking to myself to break the patterns that engulf my daily routine was a habit I had developed over the years. While it was meant to benefit me, make me feel less alone, usually it simply terrified me to the point of which I had to sit in silence to counteract the curse of hearing my own voice echo around my room. 

Countless days I had spent on projects that would never leave the

boundaries of my bedroom lied scattered across the otherwise

bare, wooden floors. They filled me with disappointment, a reminder that 

the past would always be there to haunt me. I could shelve them all, every loose 

paper, every folder, every pencil that had once made an impression on our togetherness. 

“How was your first day off?”

My computer spun to life, the hard drive buzzing with excitement to finally be awoken from its slumber, a mere four hours. Within the unbridled chat rooms were friendships that likely held no meaning to anyone besides myself.

“Good, how was yours?”

And how should I have responded? With a dramatization of the events leading up to my first [barely] human interaction of the day? With a smiling emoticon, providing to others the comforting notion that I was well? 

“It was alright, I went out to the field near my house, you know the one? I think I must 

have sent you a photo of it before. I picked some flowers and made a necklace.”

I knew the one. Left to the confinement of my personal cube, the four walls constantly surrounding me, I had taken a hobby in identifying the locations of the photographs sent through the wires of our interconnected networks.

“Nice (-: Well anyway, I think I’ll go make myself lunch and maybe we can talk more 

later.”

And there it was. The lies began small, but grew rapidly into an unbreakable peculiarity. The only trait I had pride in was one which no one knew. 

Glancing out the window, I saw another pair.

Reflected in the objects, but a pair of people.

Gazing at the clouds,

If only they knew,

How to live as I did.