Locked

There's noise everywhere. Lockers slamming, squeaking sneakers, books thudding, the sound of cloth brushing cloth and air, laughter, a hundred raised and lowered voices creating a near-deafening rumble, the kind where so many words are heard clearly that it all becomes an oddly gentle murmur. But all that doesn't matter because all I can hear is you.

Your silence is the loudest sound. It drowns out the murmur, the harsh clang of painted metal forcefully closing, the squeaky linoleum and rubber, the gentler undertones of our world revolving and passing us by without a glance, with barely a growled word.

There are colors everywhere. Pale blue-green linoleum, garishly painted maroon lockers, warm flashes of natural black, brown, red, and red hair, glimpses of bright, vibrant hues of highlights, book bags, clothing, shoes, the occasional brush of a blue, green, brown, grey, black, and hazel tinted windows on laughing, grim, intent faces. But all that doesn't matter because all I can see is you.

The way you look at me, as if suddenly you don't know me, as if you don't want to know me. The abrupt paleness of your face as all the color seemed to drain out of it except for the red high on your cheekbones and warming your ears. There's a look in your eyes that I know I will never forget, that I know will take precedence over everything else I see today, tomorrow, ever. Your body is tense and still, like a deer about to run, and your nails have buried themselves in your palms, dotting the floor with small orbs of crimson color.

And suddenly you're gone, swept away by the tides of departing peers, gone like a wraith in the mist and the only way I can be sure you were even there is to stare down at the bright red you left behind on the floor being smeared by the passage of shoes until the brightness is gone, until it's a dull red-brown that is cousin to the maroon of the poor, abused lockers that line the halls.

The last student leaves and the teachers disappear back into their classrooms for a last minute grading and still I stand there, staring at your mark on the floor. I don't feel the urge to move, the desire to go anywhere and I'm completely silent even as I'm screaming inside with such intensity that it seems impossible for no one to hear me.

I am like a locker, garish maroon and almost unnoticeably battered, alone in the school where you've left me. I can't go home because this is where I belong. For so long no one had bothered with me. My lock was broken and I was forgotten by humanity, unable to be opened and therefore deemed useless. Left in the dark, dead, I kept my secrets inside and somehow they grew and grew until I wasn't forgotten anymore, until I was actively avoided, until little tendrils of the shadows I had inside lapped at my grills, slowly seeped through the cracks and scratches and hinges and delicately tainted everything around with the color of the dried blood you left behind. But you came, curiosity like a plague eating at you, and worked at me, cajoled me, gently manipulated me until the lock keeping me closed and silent clicked open with the sound of a teardrop on the linoleum and you looked at what laid within, smothered, drowned, rotting in the shadows. And you stared, disgust and fear and horror and disbelief and shock and revulsion and so many other things twisting your body, the delicate features of your face, the look in your eyes until I knew that you regretted trying to open me.

And then you slammed me, slammed my door, locked me up tighter as you ran away, as you hid from me and the horrible welling of blood leaking from the cracked mirror, the worn pictures, the books, the pencil case, the calendar; from the being cowering inside, curled up inside the enclosed space with bloody fists and tears and mouth; from the eyes that looked out at you and begged, too full of emotion to do anything else, from the mouth that screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed. You slammed the door and ran without looking back, unable to believe, unable to accept, unable to understand. And so you hid from me and broke me again, left my insides to rot and putrefy, to leak out slowly until it's not enough and the pressure builds and builds and builds but I am unable to do anything.

I am like a locker, garishly maroon and almost unnoticeably battered, stuck closed, unable to speak. I am trapped in a locker, unable to be heard, alone in the school where you've left me.