I Watch You

I watch you

As you sit at lunch and chew.

Little do you know,

I follow you wherever you go.

We never talk but became friends on Facebook,

Only a different identity and a simple friend request it took.

I analyze all your blogs and pictures online

One day you will become mine.

You may suspect someone but you will never guess who

And still I will watch you.

First, I just want to clarify that I did not base this poem on any personal experiences or myself. I do not stalk anyone on the Internet or in real life. I think the idea of a stalker simply came to me from the recent assembly on Internet safety. I chose the topic because I think it alone can make readers feel uncomfortable, as the poem discusses an obsessed person who creeps on other people without them knowing. I use some short phrases like “I watch you” in the first and last line in order to indirectly characterize the speaker as obsessed, because society generally looks down on obsessions. I also break up the poem with the punctuation of periods to emphasize the speaker’s focused thoughts and how his/her fixation consumes him/her. I think people sometimes feel uncomfortable when others directly come out and say how they feel so I also use forthright diction, such as “watch” and “follow,” to create an insistent tone to highlight the speaker’s blunt, open view towards his/her actions. The idea that people like the speaker exist in real life makes me feel uncomfortable, especially because people could easily not know about their stalker, as the speaker confidently states his victim will never discover his obsession or identity. I hope I made everyone reading this feel as uncomfortable as I do when I think about the speaker loose in our world.

                                                                                    

Sit Back, Relax, and Enjoy the Show

Dear 11-year-old Ana,

Right now may feel stressful and full of changes- for the first time you have to change classes in the confusing Intermediate School instead of staying in one room all day- but as you grow older you will realize how easy being eleven really was. Appreciate your time now when homework consists of reading fifteen pages in a book or studying ten words for a spelling test. Do not get anxious about school now; by age 18 you will have a hard enough time remembering what you were like at age eleven and will barely remember the grades and projects from fifth grade. But still work hard in school, you will appreciate it senior year for college applications. In about two years, you will enter middle school and decide for some reason to do cross-country. Do not do it. Why would you ever want to spend your time running through the woods and sweating for fun? Accept that you are not athletic. In middle school everyone will also become obsessed with crushes. Do not, please do not, let yourself go along with this phase. If you do, you will make a fool of yourself and cringe as you look back on your obsessing. Do not worry about everyone else; they will also look back with embarrassment at their ridiculous actions. Right now you still have to share a room with Tina and I know you sometimes have to resist the urge to throw something at her from the top bunk in your bunk bed but soon you will each get your own room. Just hold out a few more months. You will also learn this soon, but know that if you beg hard enough, you can convince mom to take in more animals. Do not listen when she says if you win a goldfish at Blossom you cannot keep it. You may need to sit down for this next part. Within the next year, you and Anna Witkin will become friends. I know this comes as a shock, and yes I am referring to Anna Witkin, the woodchip-throwing demon child. On the bright side, the friends you have now and the friends you will make in the next few months will stay your best friends, though it may be hard to believe it right now, as I know they still try to play tug of war with your arms at recess. Life probably seems full of drama and changes, but relax and enjoy fifth grade and the next seven years. You’re going to love them.

Love,

18-year-old Ana

The Helping Hand?

57294301 groaned as she realized she forgot to recharge last night. She remembered her mother’s old saying, if your second hand wasn’t connected to your body, you’d forget it. The teenage girl considered going to school late, but figuring she could make it through the day, hurried outside. She slammed the front door behind her, waving her hand to lock it as she ran to her car. Once inside it, 57294301 swiped her second hand at the scanner, causing the car’s engine to roar to life in recognition of her identity. As she backed out of her driveway, she turned on the radio to hear a reporter discussing a woman who tried to rob a bank that morning. The woman’s chip had naturally alerted security the moment she stepped close to the safe and police caught her minutes later. 57294301 shook her head, chuckling at the woman’s futile attempts to escape the government’s watch. Every so often, someone would test the system and inevitably fail. After all, how could anyone outsmart a system where everyone had the robotic second hand that tracked each person’s every action and contained every detail about everyone’s life? As 57294301 neared the school, her second hand began beeping and she pressed on the brake, realizing in her eagerness to arrive to school on time, she had gone 1 mph over the school speed limit. 57294301 swiped her hand at the scanner at the high school’s entrance before heading off to history class. Today’s lesson focused on the era right before the second hand’s invention: the early 2000s. The history textbooks described how there used to be voter fraud, stolen identities, fugitives escaping the police, and kidnappings. Her teacher even insisted that people used plastic cards for IDs and boarding passes to travel on planes. 57294301 laughed at such primitive ways. How did people survive before Apple created the second hands? As soon as school ended, she raced home. Grabbing her charger from the floor, she connected it to her second hand and sighed in relief as the energy coursed through her body. 

My Very Own Groundhog Day

6:15. Obnoxious beeping sounds replaces the previous silence in my bedroom, my sanctuary. Groaning, I try to convince myself to get out of bed. But a voice in my head rationalizes, you really do not need all that time, so I snuggle deeply into the warm covers. 6:40. I pull my phone closer to my face to double-check the time. With my blind-as-a-bat eyesight, I end up with the phone an inch away from my face. I finally accept that I do need to get up for real this time. I fumble in the dark for my glasses and minutes later emerge from my room into the blinding, bright hallway with lights that burn my eyes. I wince before mustering up the energy to yell five feet away to my brother’s room.

“GET UUUUUUUP!!!”

Once I hear a startled yelp from inside his room, I leave, satisfied, and continue with my morning rituals, which includes screaming up the stairs every five minutes to remind my brother that he needs to get ready. As the clock changes to 7:10, I yell up the stairs for him to come down because I am ready to leave. A groan like a slumbering bear awakened too early from hibernation comes from his room and I realize he still lies within the comforts of his bed. Resentment builds up within me, a volcano ready to explode and destroy all those in the area. Taking deep breaths, I calm myself, waiting for the sound of him thumping down the stairs. Instead, the sound of the shower starting drifts down from the second floor. Breathe in. Breathe out. If you killed him, everyone would know it was you, I remind myself. Finally, we tear out of the house at 7:28. By this time, I am in the middle of a full-blown anxiety attack. Of course, I get stuck right behind a little old man who drives at least ten mph under the speed limit. I dump out the contents of my lunch and breathe deeply into the brown paper bag to control my hyperventilating. You will never make it to school on time. Cars line up in front of the high school, stretching on for miles. Finally, the Red Sea parts and I glimpse the senior parking lot ahead. Sliding across the icy ground towards one of the last spots, I spin the car into the open space, hoping that with the snow-covered ground no one will really know if I park within the lines… or in an actual spot. Every day without fail the same routine happens, as though I am stuck in my own version of the movie Groundhog Day.