The Idle Sky

This night is different than others, the stars wink at me as they sit.

The sky isn’t pure black, but rather a dusty graythe clouds haven’t yet run to where the sun blisters. Every direction I look the sky prevails

I guess it really never does end. I close my eyes and yet the sky still remains

It engulfs my vulnerability.

It blows a breeze through my hair

It demands the owl to hoot and the crickets to chirp.

It has the strange ability to rid me of my thoughts. Suddenly, for the first time, I am perfectly calm. This night has claimed my soul, And replaced it with an echoed repose. This night is different than others, because now I see myself in the stars.

~ Jessica Farakh

My thoughts become cloudy again as I am sucked back into a reality I had easily blocked myself out of. I look down at the scribbles that only I can decipher, the emotions and secrets that make sense to only me. I am in a group, but feel like an outsider - as if there’s a bubble separating me from the rest of them.

I hear noises around me, but it doesn’t even process. Someone’s calling my name, but I ignore it, not even looking at anyone. I'm trapped in my own little world and do nothing to break away from it.

While everyone can express their emotions with other people, I only have a notebook. When I hold the pencil, it lets me transport myself into a different world. It doesn’t have eyes or ears but it knows everything about me. I'm glad it doesn’t have a mouth.

The noises are still incoherent, but they grow louder with each passing second.As the conversation grows louder, so do the thoughts on my pages. If I do express these emotions, what will even come out of it?At least in my notebook I don’t need to worry about the constant judgment and eyes staring at me. People will always come and go, and who knows who you can trust?

Better to keep quiet than to interact in a conversation that will soon be forgotten. It’s better to just write out my feelings, that way no one has to get bored talking to me. It’s better to keep my mouth shut just in case I say something stupid that drains the entertainment out of the conversation. It’s better to -

The words on the paper are ripped from me and the voices that filled the room finally enter my ears and clog my head. I hear a loud, angry voice, which I’m assuming it’s directed at me since she’s looking right at me with a distasteful look. I avoid her gaze and just stare dead-straight at my notebook and I continue to ask her to hand it back to me.That only fuels her anger as she looks at my journal and then looks right back at me as she rips up the pages. It feels like all my secrets and thoughts are being spilled out. I feel naked in front of everyone. It feels like a mirror shattering and my thoughts are the fragments of glass being scattered around for anyone to pick up.

Chaos continues to erupt in the classroom as I scramble to grab all of the fallen pieces from the floor.The onlookers either pretend they didn’t see anything or laugh in their own amusement. It didn’t matter to them that I was humiliated. It didn’t matter that something I held close to me was forever taken from me. None of it mattered to them. My journal was forgotten, along with the words that were fading away slowly.

And the world I tried to avoid became a reality once more.

~Arpan Josan