to be read to the tune of ‘Scott Street’ by Phoebe Bridgers
By Olivia Burgess
Grieving the present is an abnormally beautiful thing. Schoolchildren mere years younger skip
gleefully into a casual afternoon. Too many birthdays are celebrated in harsh succession. Even
the bright leaves clotting the spring air kick off a fresh bout of panicked desire. It’s been this way
for the past few months; this unexplainable swelling underfoot that I can’t quite place, but after a
hasty Google diagnosis I can conclude it is truly the fear of change. Self-induced headaches
arrive from all the shouting, of screaming at people to slow down. So much looking ahead, too
hurried and preoccupied with their own business of time-walking, like the holiday they’re so
intent on getting to in three months time. It astonishes me how truly involved I used to be with
everyone’s state of affairs, the momentously earth-shattering arguments, the breakups, the
half-whispered rumours, the all important text screenshots – it’s hard to believe in this thick
shroud of silence that surrounds me when all of that is left behind.
Yet I am someone so content with ‘living in the present’, I forget I’m ever a part of it. Nostalgia is
my most prominent enemy, enrapturing my senses with the plasticity of a lunchtime trestle table,
the hazy sight of a Friday afternoon, even the unmistakably warming unity of walking into a
classroom knowing so many different faces. People I have known for years, some spoken to
every single day, some I can put our mutual incompatibilities aside to understand how drastic
this departure is.
The daily camaraderie, of course, such with everything, is limited. As of today, there are twenty
full school days left before final exams. Twenty times eight, that’s a hundred and sixty hours. I
haven’t done a mathematics calculation in a long time, so I’ll leave it up to the imagination to
muse about how many minutes I could potentially be frittering away here. I’ve never thought
about minutes in that sense – this clutch of numbers, the dedication of seconds to certain tasks
to justify their position as ‘enough’ – but now even the most everyday, mundane tasks have
become heart-stricken debates of productivity, forever trading my comforts for
academically-enhancing products. My favourite works of fiction transform into manuals and
textbooks, the carefully curated playlists of musical discovery relentlessly bombarded with
scientific videos and topic summary guides, the shouting clan of Youtube teachers whom I will
never meet but somehow have such a reliance on, this affiliation of desperate dependence. So
much for ‘good use of time’.
If you ask me what I’ll miss the most about going to college every single day, it’s the unspoken
notion that travelled around that classroom, travelled in the currents of our pen ink, pushed
those hands around the ticking clock no matter how reluctant we were. All of this change, the
hopeless flow of time. What a privilege to have experienced it all.
Olivia Burgess is a 17 year old poet raised and residing in the UK. When she’s not gathering her words, usually based on nature, love, or her muse, she loves to engage in the art of cooking and frequently tell unnecessary jokes. More can be found at @light.green_eyes
Hot Pot Magazine 