Personal Narrative-Taught In High School

I am growing.

So here comes September, drowning in leaves the color of burnt umber, the promise of education and decay growing soggy underfoot. Here is the pregnant pause, the tumultuous cliff over which must be crossed. In the autumn, it’s impossible to gaze upon the outcome--a small pair of nervous, shaking hands inside of a shroud of darkness the color of pale gold cast upon thin shoulders. They march us across the stage. We watch our feet below us as so not to trip--

But not yet.

So here comes November. This education of a higher standard, when this chill kisses my skin. Days get colder, and so do we. Seventeen and a half years old, and unable to comprehend. These notes and revisions mean more than morals and religion. How is it, when

We all know the order anyway. A list is just so blindingly concrete, a physical knowledge of the condescension of rank that has been branded like a scar onto our eyelids. The confirmation that each student walks around with a mark on our hands and our hearts and our self, being reduced to the value of a

This numbness is calm. My feet carry me, and he behind me, down a steep incline after four years of the slow and painful hike up the other side. The destination lies behind a glass door.

Eyes turn, the door opens, we enter. Seperately. We are not companions in this January heat. Authority waits for my footsteps, with cautious eyes and lips forming around punishing words: the number that replaces my name. And then each finger trembles, and my eyelids press close to catch the storm. “Congratulations…”

And suddenly, it’s May. Months pass faster than moments. To be eighteen years old, and each eye opens reluctantly. The storm never falls. Each foot crosses this stage--this bridge between worlds.

The last granule of sand is in freefall, and approaching ground zero. There is a number branded on this shroud of darkness cast upon thin shoulders--not the color of pale gold, but a blinding, shocking white.

The number is in the color. My identity is in the color. The outcome is in my gaze now. The leaves are no longer underfoot. They’re in the trees. This green is new, and the soggy umber underfoot is long gone. They aren’t the same leaves