![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I kind of always imagined I would return to my highschool. With two younger siblings, eight and nine years apart, it seemed natural. If course I'd spend a few more years in the radius of the highschool, knowing when they made new murals and who the teachers were.
Instead I ended up in a completely different state. I don't know who the teachers are. I don't know, personally, how they replaced all the chairs in the cafeteria. The new paint on the walls. I've never walked in the halls to bring my siblings a Starbucks, or been at their theatre rehearsals or picked them up from clubs.
I saw a picture of the crowd outside of my little brothers play. My old friend, graduated when I did, was there. He seemed exactly the same. I don't know when he decided to stay in town. Was it when they built a bunch of new apartments, which I heard (but didn't see, didn't feel) changed the culture? Or did he just get stuck, like tacky gym floor, to the bottom of the towns shoe.
It wouldn't be fair to say I ran away from home. Not even in the most metaphorical sense. I tried everything to stay. The cramped, horrible halls of my mom's house brought memories of the two years I stayed home quarantined. When COVID first hit, and everything closed. I didn't leave. I didn't see it.
I sat as long as I could with my Nana's house. Cried myself to sleep. Something died in the attic, and inside me. Corpse flies flooded the bathroom, and landed on me when I showered. Is this a reason to leave? Or a reason to stay? I scrubbed the yellow out of the house every day and smelt it being replaced every night.
There's a lot to be said about California. It's polluted. People are homeless, filthy due to the insistence that bathrooms are for paying customers only. It's full of things to do, of fairs and meetups and festivals and museums and...
I guess it's all about me. About love. About hate. I want to love the highschool. I want to smell the distinct, zero fresh air and BO smell that invokes playing in the halls and taking easy tests. I want to see my friends I lost, and go to the library at lunch, and goof off in the computer lab. It's not there. I'm not there. I don't get even the ghosts, because I left. I left and I'm happy.
I left and I'm happy.
Instead I ended up in a completely different state. I don't know who the teachers are. I don't know, personally, how they replaced all the chairs in the cafeteria. The new paint on the walls. I've never walked in the halls to bring my siblings a Starbucks, or been at their theatre rehearsals or picked them up from clubs.
I saw a picture of the crowd outside of my little brothers play. My old friend, graduated when I did, was there. He seemed exactly the same. I don't know when he decided to stay in town. Was it when they built a bunch of new apartments, which I heard (but didn't see, didn't feel) changed the culture? Or did he just get stuck, like tacky gym floor, to the bottom of the towns shoe.
It wouldn't be fair to say I ran away from home. Not even in the most metaphorical sense. I tried everything to stay. The cramped, horrible halls of my mom's house brought memories of the two years I stayed home quarantined. When COVID first hit, and everything closed. I didn't leave. I didn't see it.
I sat as long as I could with my Nana's house. Cried myself to sleep. Something died in the attic, and inside me. Corpse flies flooded the bathroom, and landed on me when I showered. Is this a reason to leave? Or a reason to stay? I scrubbed the yellow out of the house every day and smelt it being replaced every night.
There's a lot to be said about California. It's polluted. People are homeless, filthy due to the insistence that bathrooms are for paying customers only. It's full of things to do, of fairs and meetups and festivals and museums and...
I guess it's all about me. About love. About hate. I want to love the highschool. I want to smell the distinct, zero fresh air and BO smell that invokes playing in the halls and taking easy tests. I want to see my friends I lost, and go to the library at lunch, and goof off in the computer lab. It's not there. I'm not there. I don't get even the ghosts, because I left. I left and I'm happy.
I left and I'm happy.
