The Colours We Give | On hold

| 4 |

arashi

WHY IS THIS SCHOOL CALLED Portmouth High when it's not even close to a port? Does Lexington even have a port?

I need to find out the answers someday. Probably today.

This thought infiltrates my brain during English class, which is going on right now. It's the last class and I'm waiting for the bell to act as my Declaration of Independence. 

The image of the Pink Panther pajamas appears again, and a small smile forms on my face. The fact that she knew exactly why I called her the teleporter; it reminds me of my friend back in Boston, Bryan. He was almost always accurate at figuring out the strange nicknames I gave to people.

After teaching us some 'essential skills' for debating for the first fifteen minutes of class, the red-haired lady, whose name I've forgotten already, announces us to open our textbooks as she's going to start reading a poem. I don't have mine, so I just blankly stare at her face.

"When You Come, by Maya Angelou," she reads out, her voice earthy and clear.

It catches my attention, because Mom loves Maya Angelou. Loved. After dinner, she always used to read out some poem or the other, most of them her's, to me and Dad. Mom always made comments on how sad or fantastic or thrilling or creepy the poem was. She found every poem so full and complete, no matter how unfinished it sounded.

I might've listened to When You Come too. But I have a feeling that I'm muddling it up with When Autumn Came.

The teacher starts.

"When you come to me, unbidden

Beckoning me

To long ago rooms,

Where memories lie."

She stops reading to evaluate the first stanza.

These lines are reminding me of Mom, and they aren't pleasant memories. It's the ones including her in the hospital, with tubes attached to her body and bottles of saline hanging next to her bed. Her eyes are closed. When she hears me breathing beside her, they open, and she gives a frail smile.

I don't like this poem. It's simple. I don't want it to be so simple. So direct and easy to understand. I don't want to understand it at all.

She resumes the poem.

"Offering me, as to a child, an attic,

Gatherings of days too few.

Baubles of stolen kisses.

Trinkets of borrowed loves.

Trunks of secret words,"

A pause.

"I cry."

The last two words ram into my soul, forming a deep and hollow crater.

Drops of salt water materialize in my eyes. The tears hang at the edge of my eyelid arrogantly; there's a confusing pain inside me that feels enough to murder myself but not to make the tears fall. I'm shaking my legs too fast, and it's making my whole body tremble.

Damn my fate. It had to be that poem today. Had to be.

From somewhere distant, I hear Mom's voice. "Honey, I'll be fine," she says.

I know she won't. I want to yell at her to stop lying. I want to yell at her to stop her from going wherever she is going, and come to me. I want to collide into her arms and be covered by her unceasing pineapple scent.