The Things I Hear

Disjointed thoughts related to things I have heard, or hear.

As I sit on campus, there are boys talking about boys, talking about girls. There are girls, talking about girls, talking about boys.

There are cell phone conversations, what’s going on next week, what happened last week, what will happen this week.

There’s the fighting couple two benches away.

My thoughts are loud, louder than my heart as I pass the bench he sits on. It shouldn’t make a difference but it does. The sad part? The loudness is not because of him(although he is still beautiful), it’s from what he represents. The realization that I could live apart from my family and parents.

That I existed as an individual.

I pull myself from the sleepy stupor I’m in, just in time to hear about my Uncle filing for divorce.

The war that will follow.

My mind knows the implications, and I hurt inside. My family will never stop being torn apart, there are just too many dividing factors.

I hear my parents trying to work with my sister on her math.

I hear them yell at her, parroting voices. I know she wants to make them shut up, because I do.

I stretch out on the cold tile to let it seep into my skin. I hear footsteps, the dog’s nail clicks, machinery.

I press my forehead against the window, and listen to the crickets outside.

The birds.

The teenagers hiding out in the park.

In my car I flip on the radio, or plug in my iPod. There’s secular music, Christian music, English music, and recently a rekindled love for Spanish music.

I still hear the bass from the car next to me.

I hear the ticking of my  own car, the whirring and clicking that reminds me every second I’m in it that it needs to be fixed, that it’s broken.

At night I lay in my bed, cocooned in sheets for mental safety, and my fan whirs. It has a gentle tick, one that lulls me to sleep.

I hear the air conditioning.

I hear the TV from my parents bedroom.

If I walk into the halls, I hear their snoring, their sleepy breath.

I crawl back into my bed and hear only my breath.

Dreams are scary things, chasing what sanity I find in sleep.

There are only so many times one can watch themselves die, watch themselves hurt others, watch others get hurt. The stories are all gone now, just violence and pain and stupid memories that need to go away.

I hear only the cadence of my own rhythm, horrid and ratcheted.

I feel my heart.

I check my pulse.

I remind myself that I’m just closing my eyes for a bit.

I hear myself whisper words of comfort to an empty room.

If only I could unhear, but then I’d be back to the pathetic life I used to have.

And I’ve vowed never to go back