Stirring Point

This piece is from a creative writing prompt exploring the chaotic feelings from one’s high school days.

We were just kids, scared to death of our own shadows and unsure of who actually controlled them. We cast them against walls, projections of what we hoped others would see. We claimed them as ours, but the hands of our peers pulled the strings that made us dance.

We all vied for a positional groove, clamoring for clean space between the left of judgment and the right of acceptance. Staying tucked in the shadows kept some of us from unwanted attention. Others clambered for every available eye, using character gymnastics to draw in admiration. The rest of us swashbuckled between the hills and caverns of emotion, drunk on our little victories and suicidal in our defeats.

We fell in love with everyone, raged against the assaults on our character, and spewed ignorance by the mouthful. We swore oaths to our companions, only to betray them for a dollar a day later. Like a speeding car with no breaks, we eventually slammed into everything. Bystanders were hurt—destruction guaranteed. Hormones were our gasoline.

Our knees only weakened in public when she walked toward us between classes. Her eyes beamed like two spotlights, blistering and hot. The rest of the girls melted into the backdrop, taking on the same color as the hallway paint. She cast a glow, a warm amber, and we turned to dust. It was painful to be so in love. She was built for us—a Helen of Troy in sophomore form.

We’d walk out to the parking lot to light cigarettes and talk shit. Pure egoism, destructive and self-centered, determined our every interaction. The cheap thrills of the parking lot hierarchy required posturing. The ecosystem—symbiotic at times but guided by natural selection—was how we made sense of the world. The weed smokers blazed chillums to the left and the football players flexed macho to the right. The outcasts stayed in the corner, cursing everyone. This was the world’s nucleic center. We’d shuffle from group to group, thinking we were the Switzerland of it all. Really, we’d yet to find our spines. Choosing a clique was pointless; we were still forced to wear our own skin—the same skin we’d wake up in tomorrow.

And we hated our skin. We saw only the holes in who we were. We’d fidget from the growing pains, stumbling from one madcap charade to the next. The iron curtain of the self blocked any view of real compassion. Everyone and everything was second to the fulfillment of the self.

We thought everyone saw us, but they didn’t. They were stuck on themselves, prisoners to the same thoughts. Our minds were a dichotomous wasteland, littered with demands of acceptance and the disaster of rejection. We wanted love, admiration, and veneration. We feared ridicule, ostracism, and embarrassment. Our guts were like boiling cauldrons of emotional stew, ready to overflow at any moment.

We saw ourselves only against the backdrop of others: their measurements, their gains, and their fortune. We never stood alone as independent entities. We were comparison incarnate, seeing only rulers and yardsticks in every hand. The chaos only subsided when we finally laid down at night to rest. Then we began dreaming.