What is the point of pep rallies? Is anyone actually, genuinely enthusiastic? I find it much easier to believe that, seeing as we’re teenagers, we’re all just faking it, in an ironic sort of way.
***
High School Haiku
I feel like a se~
rial number, my friend says.
Just part of the crowd.
***
A boy I went to school with for nine years barely acknowledges me when I see him on the first day of school. He sits across the aisle from me on the bus, black headphones plugged into his ears, resolutely not looking at me. What is the world coming to?
***
Happily Ever After: A One-Act Play
Scene: Cafeteria
A girl with masses of long brown hair (JULIA) sits at a table, picking at her lunch. She gazes pensively into the middle distance in an oddly attractive way, which causes the heads of several males to flicker towards her and back as they make their way past her to their various tables.
Suddenly the cafeteria doors open and in walks a boy (name up for debate— BENJAMIN perhaps?). He has a mop of dark hair (maybe curly, maybe not), either dark brown or hazel eyes, and beautifully sculpted hands that are obviously good at drawing.
He is wearing, to JULIA’s delight, a Beatles T-shirt (Abbey Road). His eyes—unhidden eyes, eyes not hardened like those of most boys in the room—scan the cafeteria. They come to rest on the girl with the long, long brown hair.
She turns around. She sees him seeing her, her pretty (she hopes) brown eyes locking onto his hazel/dark brown ones. She smiles, and he sees past her less-than-clearskinned faced and non-brand-name clothing to her sweet, loving, true self. He smiles back at her, his eyes taking on the dazed, dreamlike quality of a prince who has just fallen in love with a princess. BENJAMIN approaches her.
BENJAMIN
Hello. I love you. Let’s go out.
JULIA
Gladly. He scoops her up into his arms and carries her out of the cafeteria. They spend the lunch hour in the courtyard, where they bond over their mutual love for Star Wars, red Jell-O, and books by Jerry Spinelli.
***
How It Really Works
The movies say that high school is
full of well defined cliques.
Cheerleaders, nerds
stoners, jocks.
Really it’s just you, your friends,
and other people