Saturday, June 13, 2009

Almost every night now, you climb out of your window and onto your roof, sprawling out across the shingles. It’s too late not too contemplate the stars, or wonder about them and the trees and the wind. It’s still warm out, but you wear your thickest hoodie like some security shield. You watch the lights go out in the houses around you; you take note of the house that has lights that never go out, at least not before the sun has made the sky a cool blue again. You ignore your homework or thoughts of sleep, reminding yourself if you're too zoned out in the morning, you can always grab a cup of coffee. You always have the right excuse to justify the things you do.
There’s a faint scratching at the window behind your head. It’s your cat, you know, because she always wants to accompany you outside. You don't let her though, because you don't want her to get hurt. Even though she prowls the top of your bunk beds with ease, you aren't sure how she'd do out here. There’s a difference between six and a half feet and twenty-five feet, so you keep your window closed, save for an inch or two of space for you to open it again.
With all the open space around you, you’re thinking about what would happen if you were gone. If you disappeared, or something happened, and the people in your life were left behind. You’re wondering if they would go through your things, looking for insight or answers. Looking for who you are. You think of all the objects -notebooks, clothes, books, CDs- cluttered around your room, and you wonder what people would think of you if they just had all of that to go by to define you.
You wonder what they would think of the books that you have, the words you've underlined, or your CDs and notebooks. You think if they went through your stuff, they might find pieces of you, but mostly, you think, they would get it wrong. Unless they had some special technology, they wouldn't know what the books really meant to you, or what you saw in the words. They wouldn't know which CDs you loved, which songs you played and played until even a line of the song written on a page could get you singing its entirety. And they wouldn't understand the words in your notebooks, how everything was filled with meaning at the time it came about, and how it changed still, in notebooks you kept in boxes. They wouldn't understand.
The only times you really wonder what people would think is times like these, in a detached sort of way with hypothetical situations. If they went through your stuff, you decide, still watching the sky, they would think that they knew you and love you and miss you, but all it would be is a projection of the things you never measured up to.

© Copyright 2007 Abby Almon

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