(Photo property of author.)

FRESHMAN

POETRY PROMPT: DAY 12 OF 30

🎵Aura suggestion: “Shiver” by Marley Caroll

Ninth grade was hard. It felt like there were all these preset paths I was trying to balance simultaneously, then gosh-damn calamity struck when all collided leaving a classic cartoon KABOOM! with the big gray cloud of smoke and debris, and a broken little boy lost inside.

Pressures of academics and  ruthless social codes consumed my heart and mind,  as I navigated a world which had suddenly become new to me, and whose complexity  seemed to  multiply overnight. It was  a   barrage  of sensory chaos,  leaving my feeble brain  running  two-thousand  miles per hour, overheated,  its wobbly, tired legs somehow not collapsed and toppled despite the weight of gravity slowly  pulling me into a sad, suffocating black hole.

I found out how naïve I really was that year. Life was a game of strategy and risk, not love and community like Big Bird had led me to believe. Though I didn’t understand why it was designated life need be so cruel, I felt okay knowing I and my twinkling irises had yet been eyewitness to many moments wherein glints of bright, changing light and chroma were revealed — signals an irrefutable, obscure beauty exists within the turmoil of life.

With this knowledge, I calculated only one logical conclusion: In a blink, I’ll be here and gone, so why not? I’ll gear up, go ahead, play this ancient VR game. I’ll explore as many crevices of this crazy world as I can. Eventually, I’ll find out what happens in The End.

Soon, the summer of '05 was over. I was a boxer in the ring ready to fight. The bell rang for Round 2 of high school, and that day I took my first steps through the noise and the haze in search of the great mysterious unknown waiting for me beyond my childhood horizons.

Lover Boy in Space

Joshua Muñoz

ig: loverboyinspace.poetry

Last revised: 21 July 2021 1:02am

Day 12: A time of conflict or turmoil

Thank you again for tagging me, Denise G , and Diana C. for creating the 30-day challenge!