distraction at its finest

(We took a field trip to Bidwell Park during my creative writing class last week and sat by the river. We were supposed to be inspired by nature and describe what we saw, but I got sidetracked. Anyways... voila.)


She says my name and it makes me feel like I'm worth something as she keeps her balance on the bridge, arms outstretched at her sides, a little girl in a grown woman's body.
Each word I say, each phrase I think, drenched in cynicism. I guess this will be a prose? Less rules but we humans expect rules for everything. Classmates asking "well, what am I supposed to write?" Isn't that up to you? People you expect all things handed to you and shame on you for comparing this water to piss, giving the excuse that it's a metaphor, shame on you foolish boy don't you ever look around you? It feels as if this hardly exists anymore, even as I try to listen to the thick gurgling of the river before me putrid voices and whispers creep in from behind me, can't you look around? See that water this free still exists in the world and not all of it lives in plastic bottles and there are leaves caught in the rocks, held captive by the current but do they really feel imprisoned? I know I'd feel more free than ever if a river pinned me, the most beautiful demise, a graceful drowning.
And she sees it all as she sticks her feet in, two earths as eyes watch the ripples expand from her toes and she creates this. She chooses to sit close to me, and we don't have to talk and I admire this.
Stop reading so loud, fool you are hurting my mind. How come I can't hear anything but the sound of my own thoughts she hums and i gladly listen to that but we lose something when we get old and that is the ability to listen to silence contentedly without pollution of air, pollution of thoughts suffocating the paths of our brains and how come I can't write pretty anymore, only ugly but it fits me so does that mean I'm ugly? Because the more filth I write the more beautiful I feel its like I expel those demons I expel whatever it is that gets worked out when someone rubs a knot in my back it is what hurts me but I feel myself force myself keep going. What if I become the character I am creating and what will her demise be? Laying still in this body of pristine water touched only by a curious poet's foot? Why go to college when all I do is write through all my classes and what will I look like when I die? Will I be a discarded tree branch stroked by the fingers of the river ever so slightly, enough to give me chills, the ebb and flow not feeling much like death at all?