April 14, 2024
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Freshman Year
By Triston Dabney
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Freshman Year
By Triston Dabney
Stuffing my insecurities in hardcover textbooks and index cards,
counting the empty calories in the six pots of coffee,
being posthumously regurgitated by the same three fingers
used to untwist, unscrew, and uncork the bottles bought to highlight
Tuesday afternoons, sequestered in the shared bedroom
where there was only unexpected homesickness and white-washed walls
filled with bright-eyed boys and girls standing knee deep in
childhood, trying to grip the thin, gold fabric of the world.
Mom told me not to be a know-it-all.
Dad warned me to always keep my closest friends.
But who knew about the immobile times
lying awake, paralyzed by great
nothingness, staring at life like an ocean of
wonders
and finding it in the patterned stucco of the blank ceiling.
Who knew about the amnesia about the
different cold, rough hands
I woke up to holding me every morning
and the various colored, estranged
sheets that swaddled my imperfection.
Through the loudspeakers and the blinking party
lights and the sweat-drenched, crowded dark rooms,
there came a sullen haze,
engulfed by the cupfuls of Tylenol taken to
ease the pain of living as me.
And when the semester was over
and the cardboard boxes were all packed,
I was left with only myself and the fear of what was to be.
Scared of what I am.
Scared of the me living as me.
Triston Dabney
Triston Dabney is a Senior undergraduate Oprah Winfrey Scholar for Baltimore, Maryland. You can find his work in Obsidian: Arts and Literature of the African Diaspora, Elevation Review, Timberline Review, BLF Press, Invisible City Literary Journal, and is a "Best of the Net" 2023 nominee. He hopes to attend an MFA and publish a collection of poems in the near future.
Image description: Pictured against a fluffy gray sofa is an African American male, wearing light beige, gray and peach headwrap, small hoop earrings, a dark beige sweatshirt with reddish orange writing. He has a slight smile with mustache and goatee.