To say I'm excited about going to college is like saying Godzilla is big - you don't get the complete picture - you don't see the buildings crumbling and civilians running for their lives. Leaving for college is one of those foundational moments in life...

My mind’s been racing, I’ve felt a disquieting anxiety and I realized what I’m experiencing is a new kind of sadness - a “delta” strain new in my experience.

In less than a week I‘m off to college and I can’t help knowing that things will never be the same. I’ll step out of this house or we’ll hug at the airport and somewhere in there - I’ll cross a line.

Will my childhood be over or is it my adolescence? I’m not sure.
Oh, God, should I hand in my key??

I can hardly let my mind linger on the subject of leaving - it’s as sensitive as a tooth - it’s radioactive.

The most fleeting or off-handed reference to leaving and my heart hammers, my throat clumps and the room transforms into a thrill ride that starts to slowly spin until the floor drops a bit like an elevator. 30 seconds of focusing on leaving and I’m a muckle of tears.

I’m mindlessly, Flamin' Doritos excited about college (the going to) but like a sacrifice, or a coin - there’s a cold, flip-side, almost death-like sadness (about leaving) happening too.

So far, I think I’ve masked the sadness, with the cat’s lazy poise and razzle-dazzle and I’m sure this feeling of loss is some sort of pre-home-sickness that will pass. Until then, I'm stoically trying to wear a big-girl skirt here.

Started from ‘call your seniors sir’
these four years have been on roller coaster.
From never missing any lab or lecture,
to going online of entire semester.
From finding every face new in the corridor,
to opening of bottles behind every door.

Long lines running out of the cafeteria,
and now running wild on unemployment hysteria.
Myriad hours spent staring at laptops
and did I mention long boring workshops?
Bonds with eternal laughs and tears
some worth, some broken love affairs.

Timidly walking through the hallway of classrooms,
to bursting crackers inside bathrooms.
Don’t know about the insights on this way;
but guaranteed were new experiences every day.
All these years we had an August run,
or should I say four years of endless fun?

Curiously wandering in pursuit of new teams,
now running against time, chasing dreams.
These bolted doors are testimony to all the screams,
morphing to adulthood from our silly teens.
Unfearful moments strolling in the common hall,
and endless hours practicing basketball.

Cheers to everyone who was part of this journey,
opening up paths of limitless learning.
And some answers I’m still searching,
like who left that chair outside my room; burning!

I always hate it when someone I count on gets promoted out of my everyday life. Nothing bathes one in neoteny like being left behind by someone off to college.

One morning they’re with you, the next, they’ve departed - dropping away, like Icarus, into those freer, more exciting, college seas. Callie did that - it wasn’t her fault, exactly, that she was two years older.

I’m a vampire for her tales of sordid doings and it was fun telling her my everything so she could laugh at my mistakes. I’ve really missed her coaching - between my every romantic play.

Sometimes I’d pause in my studies or practice - those seemingly slow motion choreographies that'll lead to MY future - to glance across our joined yards where I can see her window.

I’d hope to see a light - like she broke camp, escaped her quarantine and somehow made it home - like the moon stepping out from behind the clouds.

Within the purple walls
of my dorm room
a quiet heart began to flutter.
Perhaps it started when you wrote:
"Artemis, happy not valentines day"
on the day after fourteenth
and made it much more special
with an overused brown paper bag
and a Chuck Palahniuk.

Now at home, even within the white walls
of my own room--
I'm missing you.
my quiet heart has just been silenced
but you're there
in every The Flash episode I watch
in every taro drink I get
and in every text message I receive
hoping
for the slightest chance
of you being there.
Because, after all, you are
the Orion I could only ache for from afar.

pieces of my puzzle are aligning
trauma and enlightenment go well together
it seems as though once you've hit rock bottom
the very top feels like heaven

a walking contradiction
how do you go from wanting to die
to living your life with authenticity

pieces fitting in shapes never seen before
pieces shifting sizes finishing the next assignment

a life on hold
holds very little to me

finishing my next task is today
but what is for tomorrow?
craving more isn't selfish
it's fulfilling
questions make me contemplative
unable to sleep at night
thoughts running for more
the adrenaline keeping me alive

pieces of my puzzle can break apart
pieces deceive me and don't actually fit
it is a lesson to look more closely

a piece has appeared
it's unclear where it goes
where it starts
where it ends
it will belong in due time

Oh, you swamp me with charm - get out of my head.
There’s something about you - a warmth - like the comfort of home - that pulls at me.

I study your landscape of attractive surfaces like a star chart - logging my weaknesses - to strengthen my emotional firewall. I WANT you but my “wants” just seem untrustworthy after recent deprivations.

To be honest - I can’t afford you - not now. You’re a delicious pastry - with strings - and I need to cut all my strings.

You’re something younger me would have wanted - before the pandemic, when scandalous thinking was uncomplicated and freedoms taken for granted.

Last year simplified my reality.

Over time, boredom melted me like wax but a new me crossed some threshold of certainty - that to flourish - no, just to survive - I must become more than I am, or find I’m less than I hoped.

In 2019 goals seemed way, way someday things - far off reference points to seek out - like an inchworm. Social details occupied me like an unfocused dementia - there was an unacceptable level of childish thinking.

But now I’m an escapee on the run who won’t be taken back alive. Old attachments must be stripped down and the old world made disposable - if I’m to achieve escape velocity.

I've grown rusty and unused to summoning words from a blank page - but FINALLY - there's something new to describe. School (11th grade) is over - at last - and... more.

There's a party tonight - a REAL, honest-to-God, in person, PARTY - for about 30 of us. Yes, vaccinations are documented. Life seems to be beginning again.

I'm eager, like a boxer before the bell or a racehorse at the starting gate. I'm an animal, long constrained, who knows it's about to be set free.

I'm as disorientated as an awakened dreamer and I find myself laughing, drunk with possibilities as I try on clothes for preliminary impressions.

It's hard to quash tremors of impatience.

I'm sick of helpless, indifferent, pandemic necessity.

I'm SO tired of boredom, circling me like a vulture, in my panopticon palace - that I opted for a respite of pure terror - I'm SO clever.

I'm skipping my senior year of high school and heading off to university. I'd rather die than risk spending another year in my room(s) - I almost went crazy.

There's a paper on my desk, white as a bride. It says "ACCEPTED for fall term 2021."

I’m trying not to let on that I’m afraid. Is desire always a tangle of impossible, contradictory impulses?

I've decided that my life is my only real possession - my own, small, life-or-death riddle to solve.

I want to live with intent, like I'm aimed at something and I'm going to chase happiness like it could be caught.

My luggage is open - like alligator jaws. I stare into those tan, Ghurka depths - rigid with anxiety.

My sister (home on vacation from her surgical residency) sees me eyeing the empty bags.
"Are you worried?” She says, “You look worried."

I normally find the sister-teacher-coach vibe irritating, but now, somehow, it seems reassuring.

"No," I lie - then - "A bit," I admit, close-lipped.

But that's a later worry =]

Now as we sit, sip while smoke swisher sweets
Let me take you back in time
When I met my cherry plum with private benefit privileges
My college chick, cute Laos, do anything for me
Everyday we stay on campus, she made a house key for me
Drive me home after school to work, very supportive to me
Gave cash, ran my bath, clean clothes, a lot of love to me
Even tell her folks she at her girlfriend’s, when she staying with me
Jealous when another lady around, highly clingy under me
She a cutie, very ambitious, trying to be my “Mrs.”
Cooking bacon & eggs Saturday morning in my kitchen
Not to say I wouldn’t claim her as “Mrs.”, she deserve a chance
Her love for me is above me now, that’s out of my hands


                                                                                             Just saying