Nimbus

I've been walking around with a rain cloud above my head, sending messages of gloom to all those I meet. I no longer am the loud chirpy freshman I used to be. Somewhere along the road of sophomore year I learned the etiquette of anti-sociality. I have this angst in my heart and I feel it beating against the walls of my ribcage, like a prisoner on death row wanting to get out of the shit hole he's been in. I have this urge to be violent, with rage bubbling just beneath my skin like the simmering poison brew threatening to overflow in a witch's cauldron. I tell myself to be happy, to lighten up, to smile. I make a smile. But it just isn't true. Nothing but fake. Like those plastic masks you put on for show on Halloween. What is this that I have? Some disease? I can't pinpoint where it's coming from. But I feel it, I know it's there. It jives perfectly with the weather. I think the sky can feel my gloom. Or is it me, feeling hers?

Morning class, and I've got people. A sense of numb flows over my skin sending an inside chill along the crevices of my bones. Put on a face, make a smile, laugh some laughs. I bum off a cigarette from a friend. Break, we walk slow to the place where the business should be done. Rain shower, I clasp my black umbrella. Puddles on the ground, slow footsteps with mud, splatters on my bare legs. Maybe I should have worn pants. Embers in the rain, slow drag, white smoke. It felt right. And that was wrong. He doesn't like it, I'm aware. But he's not here. And this is how I cope. Back to class, lightheaded. That friend. Only on Thursdays, that friend. I contemplate whether I should get myself some of my own cigarettes. But the shop's just too far away, and the lazy is in my soul. I debate. Athletes shouldn't smoke. And I don't know. I'm still knotted, altogether, like the ball of yarn in the bottom of the dark blue craft box. Tangled and forgotten, beneath all the crochet strings. Different. Confused.

I'm not letting go and I'm not giving up. So where's the sunshine I've been waiting for?