Thank you
antistar_e for being so patient. Here's all of mine, meaning that now I'm up to date. Also, this post is super long, you're welcome for the cuts.
Prompt for 11th of November: A recurring metaphor. A text message that was never sent. Someone making their own parking space. And someone else entirely getting arrested.
Uninterested high school english students, eyes glazed over or "covertly" focused on their phones, crowded into a small room, feign attention while the teacher tries to teach poetry. Even the few students who enjoy language cannot find the energy to care. This time-slot, an hour after lunch, is always unusually warm in an underfunded school system, more conducive to naps than any coherent thoughts. Despite the obvious disinterest of the students, the teacher does her best to create an excitement for rhymes and metaphors.
"So who can give me an example of a metaphor?" she searches over her shoulder, chalk poised at the board, preparing herself for a deluge of answers that just isn't coming.
She waits, tense silent moments, then turns and faces her oblivious students.
"Come on, you guys. I know at least one person in this room knows an example of a metaphor. Justin, give me an example," she returns to the board and waits for the football player to answer.
"Um . . . roses are red?" his voice a thick, slow drawl, as if the answer is slowing creeping its way from his brain to his mouth. The rest of the class begins sniggering.
"Actually, that's not quite a metaphor, but I appreciate the effort. How about roses are love?" she begins scribbling madly on the board, ignoring the continued teasing, anything is better than a comatose class.
Justin never claimed to be smart. He was a football player, that's all he needed to be. His job, as far as he was concerned, was to play well and do just enough in school that he could keep playing, and possibly go on to college football with a scholarship.
This isn't to say that he was an idiot. He had excellent common sense, and if he actually tried in school, he'd probably do quite well. But he knows his place. Using his dumb jock persona, he found himself a cheerleader girlfriend. She worked her ass off on the field and in the classroom, because she wanted a spot in the dance squad at UCLA and knew she'd need scholarships to get there. She did her best to get Justin to study, but he continued to do only what was necessary.
Three days into Justin's poetry unit in english, he considers sending his girlfriend one of his poems in a text. He knows how much she loves random romantic shit. Then he realizes that if he does this once, he'll probably have to do a lot more. Remembering who he is, he deletes the text, because he only does what's necessary to get by.
Before Justin has time to figure out which college's offer he'll accept, his girlfriend seeks him out in the hallway.
"Sweetie, have you decided that you're going to UCLA yet? What am I supposed to do if I can't cheer for you? How are you going to get any of your homework done?" she smiles and giggles, but Justin knows she isn't kidding around.
"Well, I'm meeting with Coach and the college counselor today. There's a lot to look at," he mumbles quietly into his locker.
"So you don't want to go to college with me? But what will I do without you there? I'll get so bored! I may even turn to other guys," she pouts and leans forward just enough that Justin gets a view straight down her cleavage.
"You know it's more than that. Coach is going to find what's best for me. I play football, it's what I do," he shrugs while closing his locker, then makes his way to the counselor's office down the hall.
"So you're willing to give me up for Coach?" for the first time, she isn't playing her emotions to manipulate him.
"I'm willing to do what's best for me in the long run," he shuts the door behind him as he enters the office.
The meeting ended with a decision to accept the offer from Texas A&M. Justin didn't really care. Coach and the counselor were happy with the decision, that was all that mattered. Justin followed Coach out to his car, an absurd flame-covered pick-up taking up three spaces in the faculty lot.
"Justin, you're a smart boy, a good, smart boy, so why are you doing this to yourself?" Coach begins grabbing some gear out of his truck.
"What do you mean, Coach?" Justin helps Coach lug the gear to the practice field.
"You don't need people telling you what to do all the time. Are you happy with Texas A&M?"
"Yeah, I play football, Coach. You and I know I can't do much else."
"Justin, don't say that, and don't limit yourself. What'll happen if you hurt yourself? You need to have a skill to fall back on. What else do you like to do?" after dropping the gear off, they went into Coach's office.
"Um, the other day, in English class, we learned about poetry. I know I'm not too good at expressing things, or talking pretty, but I liked the ones we read and stuff. We had to write one for class, and I liked it, so I'd like to maybe learn more about it. Please don't tell the team I told you that," he let out in a rush, eyes pointed directly at the ground.
"I'm not going to tell you what you can and can't do with your life. If this is something you're interested in, then go for it. Why don't you think about that, but not right now, because we have practice," he got up and went back out to the field while Justin went to the locker rooms.
Justin stayed late after school one day, telling the guys that he needed to talk to Coach. Instead, he walked across the school to his english classroom. He set up a meeting with his teacher, hoping for some further insight into poetry.
When he got there, the classroom was silent and eerie. Sitting quiet on a desk in the front row was a packet of papers. On the top was a note, written in his teacher's practiced and precise script.
Justin-
I am very proud of (and a little surprised by) your interest in poetry. Inclosed are my favorite poems and notes on why I like them. I also (self-indulgently) slipped in a few of my own, hopefully you'll be entertained by the one about the truck in the faculty lot that always blocks my spot. I think you would do very well to find a creative outlet. Remember to have fun!
The signature, completely belied by the clear script above was completely illegible. Bemused, Justin slipped the packet of papers into his backpack and left the building.
On his way to the senior parking lot, he passed several police cars blocking the entrance to the faculty lot. Meandering over, he saw the image that served as the basis for his very first poem. There, held back by three officers trying to wrestle the baseball bat from her fingers, was his english teacher. She worked to get free so she could continue smashing Coach's truck, which was, as always, taking up three spots, one of them hers.
Prompt for 7th of November: One mistake, two mistake, red mistake, blue mistake.
i. You'd think I'd know better than this. All those years of denouncing happily ever afters as collective hallucinations of utopia as dreamed up by girls who never got over the reality that they weren't royalty stood behind me, propping me up. I staggered under your half-lidded gaze and grabbed hold of my admittedly sketchy morals. Thinking back, I can't remember the moment all my preconceptions and carefully constructed safety nets fell away, leaving me alone with you. And that was my first mistake.
ii. Everyone (regardless of sex or age) enjoys compliments. We relish being found worthy in some way. I made an effort to compliment her at least once every time we hung out. Almost made a fame of it, hiding them in conversations. She'd blush later, only just realizing what I said. It was important to keep a balance. I wanted her to know how much I enjoyed her company, but I didn't want to scare her away by coming on too strong. Her smiles, her laughs, how she could never sit perfectly still and would find small things to worry with her graceful fingers, they all captivated me.
She was always early, afraid to be late, like I might leave if she wasn't there when I arrived. I usually found her waiting for me in a quiet corner, book splayed across her lap, eyes focused on the world she travelled to through the lines on the page. In conversation, every so often she used a word I didn't know. Embarrassed, she'd stumble over a definition, intertwining apologies and other words a little above my reading level.
I could see myself with her, found myself craving her company. I wanted her to myself. I didn't want anyone else seeing all of her curves in the early hours of the morning. THe thought of someone else feeling the taste of her laugh and the smell of her hair as it hid all the troubles the earth could ever conceive of made me rage with jealousy.
I told her I loved her, asked her to be mine and mine alone. She smiled her 'tired after an orgasm' smile and responded by placing one soft pacifying kiss on my forehead, over my right eye. Without a word, she curled into my side and fell asleep. If falling in love with her was my first mistake, then telling her was my second.
iii. She distances herself after my confession. It hurts to watch her do all she can, driving the point home that we are fuck buddies and nothing more. After sex, she leaves before morning. Warming me as I fall asleep, the bed is always cold when I wake up.
Throwing myself into work, I try to ignore the pangs in my heart every time she calls, and every time she doesn't. Both trying to avoid each other, we end up haunting the same bars. Eventually, I give up and drinking alone at home.
No one has to tell me, I've become a pathetic mess. However, I do so in such a way that no one sees. My friends see a homebody, and slowly drop me from their circles. My house, a usually clean (or relatively so) affair, is now nearly as bad a college dorm. I might think abut cleaning it, if I ever had anyone over. Now that she's stopped calling altogether, I'm pretty much completely alone.
One night I start a fight with my reflection. Both of us screaming obscenities and perceived failings. In a fit of rage, I punch my reflection's face, hoping that ruining this facsimile of myself might fix the reality. Not satisfied with just a punch, I continue to splinter the mirror, until shards embed themselves all over my body. As red drips down to dye the carpet, I realize I've made another mistake.
iv. Maybe if I weren't so drunk. Maybe if I were less distraught. Maybe if I hadn't already lost so much blood. My phone, safe in my pocket, begins to ring as I slip in and out of consciousness.
[When I don't answer she knows something is wrong. I always answer her calls, it alarmed her at first, but eventually she found comfort in the consistency. She drives over, and when I don't answer the door, she uses the spare key from under the windowsill.]
My vision is blurry, so when I see her, deciding it can't be true, I decide I am dead. The angle I must be seeing removes a phone from its pocket and calls god. I tell the angle not to cry, because death is an adventure, or something like that. Lowering itself, the angle cradles my head in its lap and soothingly runs its hands through my hair and over my arms and back again. I let the world go dark around me, sinking into the angle's lap and allowing sweet death to finally take me.
[She blames the paramedics for showing up too late. She blames god for allowing me to die. She blames herself for not loving me back. She blames herself for not being able to save me. She blames herself for feeling the faintest twinge of relief as I turned blue. Unable to ever forget my face, she remembers that night as one big mistake.]
Prompt for the 13th: recollect me darling / raise me to your lips / two undernourished egos / full rotating hips
As your hands ghost over my hips and back, snaking around my shoulders and back down again, I wonder if you'll remember me. I don't mind living in your memories as drunken slurs and needy hands, so long as I am there. The dark of the basement becomes morning light streaming through bedroom curtains. Shy eyes, make-up smudged. we take a shower. Water and hands and lips and tongues. Absolutions for the sins of last night. Borrowed clothes to ease the walk of shame. Head held high by promises of nights to come. Try as I might, I can't get this stupid grin to leave my face.
Prompt for the 15th: hypocritical pathological homosexual liar
Every time he calls us together to relay some important bit of news, we always assume that this time he'll come out. It's understood amongst our little group that he is gay, and either doesn't realize or is too scared to tell us. He shouldn't be, but we let him keep this secret, because we'd do anything for our friends.
We all watch as he proudly lives a bachelor life. He doesn't look twice at any girl, but we've all caught him checking out random guys. There's really no reason for him to hide anything. We surreptitiously slip it into conversation, how sometimes we check out members of the same sex, or we like him for him and not where he sticks his dick. But he refuses to come out.
Everything is going along as normal. We're all whores except for him, going home with anyone and everyone who catches our eye. The first night I go home with a girl, it only raises the eyebrows of the boys who want videos of our activities. The next time we go out, one of the boys finds himself a guy we all openly drool over. From then on, we have no restrictions or reservations, creating our own little Sodom and Gomorra, and yet he has still to come out.
I'm sure we'd be offended if we weren't so distracted. Our proclivities create and entire underground movement. What was an exclusive group in a small series of dive bars, through the help of the internet, instigates an entire sexual revolution across the globe. And still, he has yet to come out.
But now, he doesn't have to. We made sexual orientation obsolete. Medical advances and careful application, made STDs and STIs obsolete as well. Life is for pleasure, you can't feel when you're dead, so get it all while you still can. And now no one has to face hateful discrimination based on who they love, because we all love each other. And we'd do anything for our friends.
Prompt for the 17th: Tell a story in six words.
I just can't care anymore. Sorry.