The foyer buzzes unfamiliarly against my skin. It’s hot. It’s cold. It’s raining. There are too many people. Too many people I know. Too many people I used to know. Change has marred them all and here I am, waiting. Fit. Misfit. Dammit.
I scrunch my jacket upto my elbows and watch my feet graze the old familiar greenish-gray tiles. People laugh and shout and sit and feel.
I don’t.
I feel like a stranger in a land I used to own.
But i'm not running.
I'm grazing.
I'm bruising. I’m lost. And when you come looking, you won’t find me. There are too many people.
The city lights beckon, flashing the cold swirling waves, seducing me into joining them. I lean against the parapet completely mesmerized. The breeze blows butterflies on my skin and my toes curl on the tarmac as I fight the urge to jump. Maybe falling only hurts while it’s happening..
“N, your phone!” K screeches giggling. She’s far gone. I grab it dazedly. ‘Mama’ it says blinking. Blink, blink, blink. Dammit.
“Hey”, I say cautiously scratching at a scar on the parapet, my head reeling from standing straight.
“How’s the party?”
“Fun”, I state brightly, clutching at straws, my imagination frozen, “You know, the usual.”
“No drugs or alcohol, I hope”, you say, only half joking, just as a very stoned B retches into a plastic bag.
I turn away hurriedly, “No no, pizza, coke, music thaaat.. We’re playing Taboo now, my team’s winning.”
The scene sprawling in front of me spits all the wrong answers to your questions on how I’m getting home.
“R’s dad is dropping me, I’ll be home by 1”, you’re okay with that. I flop down on the old pipes ungracefully. It’s so easy to lie to someone you don’t want to hurt. Cigarette butts disfigure the terraces’ virginal surface and the boys have started rolling more joints. Hash, Mary Jane—pretty girls that stain my own virginity as I test the weight of the bong in my hand. Her name’s Mary, they say proudly. She’s blood red so I’m guessing Bloody Mary had a hand in the christening but Z mutters something about a Christmas present.
“You don’t know what it’s like, dude. Everything just suddenly becomes so fuckin clear & you’re all mellow & you just don’t care… Here. Try it.”
I smile at him, he thinks that’s what I want, it’s what everybody wants.
He’s a smart boy. Hot, intense, the boy they’re always talking about. But then I see his bony shoulders, shaking fingers, vacant eyes, the way he can’t remember what he said 2 minutes ago, how everything is so fucking funny, how he smells of despair & fear & something wasted.
I watch the smoke swirling through his outstretched fingers and suddenly, I know what I want. I want to care. I’m sick of running and searching for escape holes and hiding places, of painting faces and words, of tracing excuses in quicksand.
It's my turn, and I pass. I’m ready to face the world with my blindfold folded.
