Scarlett Elizabeth
Bio
18. I write short stories and poetry.
Stories (4/0)
Just Another Monday
It is just another Monday in Mrs. Smith’s class. I sit, three desks from the left in the farthest back row, spinning my dull ring around my finger in a sort of habitual motion. I like to sit in the back. I don’t like it because I can goof off like the other kids, but because I can’t stand the idea of someone constantly watching me. I don’t want my back to be on display to those behind me. I don’t want to worry if I’m sitting up straight or if my hair looks okay. I don’t want anyone to notice what I’m wearing or even have a thought about what I’m doing. I want to just sit in peace, and do my work. In the back, it’s almost as if I’m not there. I go unnoticed. High school is not how I expected it to be. I always imagined a place of freedom and of higher intelligence that encouraged free thought and individuality. Now, sitting in the back observing the classmates around me, I know I was wrong. The girls in the front of the room are passing notes and laughing, their low cut shirts falling lower with each giggle, each of them modeled in the image of their favorite celebrities. Each one trying harder and harder to be someone else. The boys to my right are throwing balled up paper at each other and the kid to my left is asleep. It seems as if I am the only one paying attention. Here, it seems less like a school and more like a prison. We can’t speak our minds or use creative thought, but instead are taught to be more like the standard, turning each of us into boring and lifeless replicas of the system. Instead of being known by our names or hobbies, we are labeled by numbers: our test scores, our class rank, our GPA. They police how we dress, how we talk, how we sit, how we think, and even when we pee, yet tell us to act more mature. Every day is a sick repetition of the day before until summer, which only leads us to another year of this lifeless facilitated learning. My eyes draw to the faded diamonds on my ring. There was a time when this ring wasn’t so dull. When my mom first gave it to me, it was beautiful and sparkling. Throughout the years it seemed to grow with me, becoming older as I did, and losing some of its shine as a result of the usual wear and tear. Now it just seemed to be a depressing reminder of what once was.
By Scarlett Elizabeth6 years ago in Viva
High Thoughts
Now that I am taking a hiatus from smoking, I have decided to dive into the odd depths of my notes on my phone that I have been consistently adding to. When I’m high and have a particularly interesting thought, I jot it down in my notes, to be reassessed with a sober mind. I am a writer as well as a poet, but I fear my high self does not do a good job at portraying that. Still, I present to you, straight from my notes, typos and all, my odd and abstract high thoughts.
By Scarlett Elizabeth6 years ago in Poets
The Streetlight
It was strangely warm out for a January night. On a night like this, John and I would be cuddled up on the couch, my head on his chest, watching a movie. John would always fall asleep and snore loudly in my ear. That little couch had been through years of use and now creaked every time there was weight on it. John always loved that damn couch. I couldn’t bring myself to sit in it, much less get rid of it since he had passed. The impression of his body laid on the right recliner, where he had spent nearly 50 years lounging with his feet up, watching the news. He used to yell at the stories he disagreed with, and every time, I would march in angrily, wondering why I had ever even married him in the first place. I regretted it even then. I loved him, and I had for most of my life, so life without him was hard.
By Scarlett Elizabeth6 years ago in Humans