....tithed scraps garnered from clearing off desktop at work

Every morning when I wake up and brew generous amounts of Maxwell House Irish Blend house coffee in my room, not wanting to go anywhere near Manual-not wanting to skim the contours of the building or to even touch the school itself-realizing that the moment I set foot into the school will be comparable to floating in an aquarium, face down, little bubbles of self-esteem and self-worth bobbling north from my blue lips, expiring perhaps when they hit the surface of my dreams-popping with a sweet sound of freedom.

I wear blazers my grandfather Frank gave me. Stylish, Nineteen-seventies and late sixties bowling alley chic. My hair is routinely sculpted and sprayed. Looking back at pictures of me from Junior Years I now consider myself handsome, but perhaps it was Manual Singers, or Cross-country, where my time never seemed to dwindle. Where the emotional bruises festered into physical welts and I found myself isolated, all alone, throwing punches at my shadow in my room solitude, a haphazard stash of C.D.’s sloppily arrayed, pictured of art-Rembrandt and Picasso keeping me company.

I smoke illegal cigars. I sporadically congregate with friends. I walk alone down the streets staring at the curved heads of the streetlamps, watching the jaundice glares emit their final nocturnal yawn. Two trips to Europe have already been fastened beneath my belt. My head swiftly lolls to the light melodic sways of the Smiths. I feel that I am hated for Loving. I feel that I am haunted for wanting. Most of all I feel lonely and I feel that if I could trek it to Calvary and clamber up that russet cross, even squinting with my glasses doffed, God would still evade me

1995 I spawned a friendship with Matthew Brown. Mark-Andrew in all likely hood lost his virginity. I escaped to San Antonio, reaping poetry books and pouches of Starbucks coffee back home with me in the deep, blistering heat that was to transition into my Senior year of high school. I remember Coach Ricca calling and my dad (my poor dad) typing out a letter to Coach Ricca, telling him that, because of the lavender shadows that skirt across the shore of my emotional stability, I will have to cross the laces of my sneakers together and retire my jersey. I will have to leave.

Coach Ricca is understandably peeved, as I would have been, had I been loosing the Captain of my team-the character who has trouble making shit happen.

Always the optimist. Always the dreamer. I sailed off into the ominous teasing future, wondering what ill-fortune my senior year would avail.

In line, Fee day, Coach Simmons can’t shit me with the whole elevator pass ploy anymore. My hair is finely combed-a tad longer, surfed to the right. I wear a blue shirt I’ve had for nearly a decade, a blazer on a hot, sun burnt day, jeans and a pair of year old Doc’s.

She is standing in line, and wearing thick Doc Martens also a skirt Vanessa would have given a covert thumbs up to before composing a poem laden with interclass stylish envy. She is standing, as if she is about ready to jump into a swimming pool, next to Amber. Patrick McReynolds had not met Amber yet, nor will he for another three months.

The cusp of my senior year and I feel like a looser. I feel like how I feel today. Feel like I have swung the bat at every pitch that was every thrown at me. Have swung the bat as hard as I fucking cold. Have stepped up to the plate, apprehensive, choking the tapped end of the bat as fiercely as I could, swinging before the pitch was thrown, in most cases. Not keeping my eye directly fastened onto the velocity of the pitch. Thrusting my entire weight into the direction of the pitcher. Not caring if it was a curve, a fastball, a knuckle change-up. I just wanted to hit the ball that I always struck out. I struck out swinging freshman, sophomore years. Midway through my Junior year I wore my hard hat backwards and held the thin-slant of the bat a little bit looser. I struck out watching at first. Sometimes complementing, using arcane terminology. Eventually I struck out because I felt that I didn’t need to knock the dirt off of my cleats and step up to the plate anymore. I felt like a failure.
All of life was readily transpiring around me and I had failed. I had failed.