AN ODE TO YOUR DREAMS

( 十二 ) vigorous flower

vigorous flower.

THE MONTH OF AUGUST COMES and goes at a speed that is much faster from your perspective, with you having spent your break within the confines of the four walls of your room. Your mother occasionally hovers around to check up on your state, only to find you laying on your bed each time with either a book or a phone in hand with headphones covering your ears. The voice of Hayley Williams, guitar riffs and heavy strums, and rhythmic drums blast against your ears, singing songs about the depressive process upon growing old.

Before you know it, the next month approaches still with the blazing Sun emitting heat that is relatively similar to the previous month, although with rain showers. You wake up greeting the month of September to a foggy window with rain water spilling onto the surface of the transparent window beside your bed. The winds are cold, but as the rain stops, the warmth of the Sun comes back two-folds and you are left with sweaty t-shirts and overused electric fans.

You come back to school along with every other student to begin the second trimester, and as you look at the date flashing bold and bright on your cell phone, it tells you that it is already the seventh.

There are not many dates to be marked along the expanse of a whole year in your calendar considering that there is only you and your mother's birthdays to celebrate along with other significant holidays. The month of your mother's birth is a commemoration to her existence; yours would be the month of February.

On the other hand, the month of September reminds you of your classmate, Itoshi Rin, one whom you've had multiple interactions with to form a significant connection. His 'significance', to you, being defined as Itoshi Rin popping up every once in a while in your mind whenever there are things that remind you of him. Things such as a soccer game randomly coming up on your television when you switch it to a random channel or someone yelling out obscene cuss words in a movie. The little things.

As the ninth of September rolls faster towards the present, so does the reminder of the date of his birth. Each day that comes sends a blaring reminder into your mind. It comes like a rising action steadily flying into a climax that has your heart palpitating from the anticipation of the next event to take place.

And as the thoughts play into your mind, for once, you spontaneously decide to make an independent choice.

THE HALLS ARE THE OCEAN and you are a castaway drowning amidst its waves. With each motion you make to go forward, the salt waters close in on every inch of your skin—you feel it everywhere; taste it, even—and as you come closer towards your destination, so does the abyss lying beneath the middle of the body of water. The waves crash and with each inhale, water replaces the air that fills up the small expanse of your lungs and you choke.

( God, you didn't know that you could ever feel this nervous your entire life, but now you do and it sucks. )

You slide the back entrance of the room open, firstly dropping your bag on your chair before scanning the room to take up time. You are still drowning after all. The feeling hasn't left despite having reached your destination. Your head aches slightly from the pressure.

You clasp the blue paper bag around your fingers tighter as you leave your seat. You march towards the front row of seats, turning to the one at the very corner just right beside where the wide windows are.

You halt in front of your literature partner's chair and watch his gaze flicker upwards from the notebook he was reading on his desk. He raises his brows expectantly and you swallow a lump of saliva piling within your throat.