Those Liars.

I cleaned my room
but somehow

my heart's still dusty
my mind's still crowded.

(and
they told me it was
all-purpose cleaner!)

I went to a protest

just to rub up against strangers.

The Applause of Crickets

We cradled the cracks on the sidewalk with careful steps.  There was nothing more to be said on the subject, so we said everything again, this time with more expression and hand movements.

"I just don't get what the use of a 'break' is!" I voiced to the night sky.

"I know!" Up went her hands.  "And I hate calling it that.  It's only two letters short of a break up."

It was a sad but cathartic rehearsal.

Quiet gathered around our soft, rhythmic pace.  Our performance must have rendered our audience of passers into awed silence.  I let out a sigh into the night sky, then shook my head.

A bus pulled up on the street beside us.  Just as she was about to roll on to repeating Act 1 again, I pushed her up the wet metal steps and dragged her onto a seat.  She was almost surprised, but not enough to protest.

We fidgeted, and sat.

A woman across from us in droopy, laundry-sack clothes fished an apple out of a walmart bag and took a bite.

"I just wish I knew what he meant." She said simply, looking off.

 I hushed her. "We're going to take this bus wherever it's going."

"Should I just text him and tell him I think we shouldn't call it a 'break'?"

"We both know you won't be able to focus on your classes tomorrow, anyhow.  You won't miss much by skipping them."

Her voice rose.  "And who's going to get the kids?"

"We'll get a room wherever we end up.  Somewhere cheap. I have my debit card."

"Obviously you are going to side with me.  But... what about the rest of our friends?"

"Plus, you can just get notes from other kids in your classes.  People like you, cause you lead all the group projects.  They owe you."

"I don't want there to be this... weird... division." She looked me at me with those perfectly framed blue disks of ocean.  "What if he decides this is it?"  The ocean stirred.

I breathed. "It's not over yet.  Don't count your doom-chickens until they hatch."

"They do owe me."

"What?"

"For the group projects."

"Oh."  I slumped further into my seat. "I thought you were talking about the doom-chickens."

The apple-woman's lips were leaking juice out of the sides of her mouth with every crunch.

The bus rumbled beneath us, and with every toss, our necks became less and less eager to hold our heads up.  Like old helium balloons, our heads slowly slacked and rested comfortably together.  I closed my eyes and imagined that we were headed to New York City, where it was snowing a magical snow that covered the streets in glimmer.  I pictured us stepping out into a world of white that made us smile and want to buy red satin gloves.

When we jerked awake, it was not snowing.  It had begun to rain again as the bus screeched for us to exit.  The woman was gone, and had left behind a browning core on the seat.  We shifted out and wandered onto the damp florescent-lit street.  The bus pulled away as our eyes were still trying to adjust to the night.  I peered at the silhouetted buildings, the trees, and then down at the cracked pavement.  We had taken a campus bus, which had looped back to where we had started.  I took her hand and we walked back to the dorms, accompanied by the applause of crickets.

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Right Foot in Front of Left Foot, Left Foot in Front of Right Foot

Some days

it's all I can
do.

The Wise Fool

In the past month, I've felt a lot of shifts happening in my life.  I've evolved from being a student, to being a teacher, and from being a follower, to being a leader.

 And yet, I still carry on my back my former identities, realizing that I am still what I was last year.  As a teacher, I must learn how to be a catalyst to my students.  As a leader, I must follow the needs of those who are under my charge. 

Is this the burden of the wise fool?  To lead younger fools, while in full knowledge that you know no more than any of them?

As I watch my students and my friends going through the same difficulties (yet always through different paths) that I did last year, I can help wanting to “save” them.  I want so badly to explain to them why everything is going to be okay, to tell them that they’ll be better and alright in the end, to remind them that God loves them and is with them to hold their hands every step of the way.  Yet, I know that words and explanations are useless.  Not because they would not listen, but because there is a reason for the voyage to be long and filled with hardships.  We all must suffer into truth.

I’m glad I made a makeshift scrapbook last year, of various scraps of paper and thoughts of the day.  It helps  to remind me where I’ve been. 

As I retrace back through the books I read last year, making notes beside last year’s notes, I see the mark on the door frame that shows I’m just a bit taller than I was last year.  Yet in some ways, though my understanding of just how little I know has increased, I can’t help feeling a little bit threadbare.  Like a room under renovation whose workers stalled further progress after tearing it all down, I am waiting to be finished.  I am waiting for the Renovator to finish his work, so I can be more than an austere, empty space fit only for suitcases and odd bits of furniture.

The Kingdom of Heaven Looks Like

a round table
of friends and just-met-friends
laughing and singing
together, ever eager
to scoot their chairs closer
and turn their trays sideways
to make room
for
one more chair.