kinda emotional, kinda emotionless

It was my senior year in high school and wrestling season had just ended. My aunt sent me a congratulatory musical card – the kind that plays part of a song when you open it – which I thought would be fun to tape to the inside of my locker (I shared this locker with a friend of mine) so that it played every time I opened it. This one played “Simply the Best” by Tina Turner. It worked, and I enjoyed it for a few days until the weekend which I spent in the mountains on a hiking trip with my dad and brother.

When the trip was over I checked my phone and saw that I had a voicemail from my locker-mate saying there was “a bomb scare or something” and that I had to talk to my principal on Monday. That Monday morning, I met with my principal who explained to me that a night janitor heard a ticking noise coming from my locker (apparently that’s what those cards start to do when they run low on battery) and called the police, who called the bomb squad, who shut down the two major intersecting roads near my school and brought in a robot to inspect my locker. When the robot x-rayed the locker, they saw the “device” taped to the door, some half-empty water bottles that happened to be on the top shelf that they thought must have been chemicals or explosives. They also thought they saw wires connecting everything together. Eventually they saw the monstrosity for what it was and shut down the operation, but apparently it was a pretty elaborate production. The article made the front page of the local newspaper the next day, complete with a photo and everything.

I never really got into trouble in high school and the principal knew who I was, so after talking for a few minutes we agreed that the whole thing was an honest mistake and that there was no malicious intent (although he said some parents were upset to the point that they wanted me suspended, expelled, or even to pursue some kind of legal action) and he let me off the hook.

Maker

Parental Unit/Figure

Chief, Old Sport, Your Honor

Glucose Guardian (for sugar daddy)

Senpai

my brain:

1.  “The number of hours we have together is actually not so large. Please linger near the door uncomfortably instead of just leaving. Please forget your scarf in my life and come back later for it.” (mikko harvey, from “for m,”)

2.  “I still feel like the world is a piece of bread, I’m holding out half to you.” (eileen myles)

3. “Wherever you are it’s okay. You can come back from it. Whatever happened to you down there, whatever the world looks like now, that’s not how it always looks. That’s not how it’s always going to look. There’s more. There’s always more.” (patrick ness, from “more than this”)

4.  “I was making dinner and I got a message. Go look outside, she said, go look at the sunset. My apartment is small, with four rooms and two windows that don’t see much light so I had no idea. I pulled my coat on and hurried out. I was running to this sunset, suddenly the only thing that mattered. I hurried past the taller buildings to the park and the sky was leaking shades of pink and purple. It was beautiful and fleeting, there one minute and gone the next. I would’ve missed it; I almost kissed it. And so I started thinking, how great it would be to get a nudge, a tap on your shoulder, a moment or two before your life changes. Stop what you’re doing and look around, you’ll want to remember this later. In a minute, you’re going to fall in love.” (kelsey danielle, from “unexpected sunset”)