We Fight Ourselves :: [Radio + Stevie]

[L△LIA]

function on fire burn the roof off this motherfucker psych ward is ballin dope craze like no other In her head the world is an electronic beat and the voice of a man she has never met, but who knows how to turn his vocal chords into a drum, poetry, and sunshine, all at once. This is also the kind of sound that gets her yelled at by her fourth period English teacher, who is of the strict opinion that her class is for writing essays, not for pencil tapping and head bobbing. The words — "Sure, sure, because no one has ever used music as inspiration for writing before." — weren't taken quite how they were intended, but Mrs. Calhoun's reply was certainly clear. The gist was something along the lines of liar liar pants on fire. But more yell-y. And with a demand that Raleigh sit in the hallway for the rest of class. There might have even been a follow-up of detention, but the bell of salvation rang (not just in her head this time) and she took it as her cue to book it to lunch in double-time. People skills are rarely the strong suit of weirdos, freaks, and crazies, so today a cafeteria full of teenage social warfare looks like the opposite of what the girl infamous for claiming to have a radio in her head wants to deal with. Usually she sits with Oz and the other hippie dippy cult kids he lives with or maybe at the table with the Hartmyre girl who seems to think she's a ghost. You know, Raleigh's kind of people. However, the Children of the Earth are suspiciously absent — probably out protesting animal testing at the city labs again — and Esther looks like she's in one of her flour throwing moods, so that's out. Glancing left at the jock clique and right at the IQ superstars, she turns on her heel and walks straight through the side door to sit outside in a little nook next to the bike racks. See? She fits right in here. The air has a slight chill, but isn't too bad considering how insanely cold it was just last week. Setting her lunch tray down on the ground, she tugs the hood of her jacket up and stops trying to repress the music in her head. Here, she doesn't have to care who's watching because no one is. "Hold up, biatch! This your favorite song. Translation: Ven aqhmm do da da badda bum —" And it's true, she's heard this one before, but that doesn't mean she understands what the song is about (something far less innocent than she is) or, especially, what the words to this particular part are. Not English, that's for sure. Mrs. Calhoun would not approve. That's not enough to stop Raleigh though and she tries to compensate for her skinny white girl rapping skills by breaking out her equally, shall we say, fantastic beat boxing skills while simultaneously snacking on soggy school lunch fries. This? This is some kind of freestyling and the world outside her head doesn't know quite what to make of it.

[Deleted]

s t e v i e.

right? fight it, take the pain, ignite it,
tie a noose around your mind
loose enough to breathe fine and tie it,
to a tree, tell it-

Is there a better word for antihabits, I can't remember, like one of those things that you're supposed to care about but in the end there's just a certain part of you that is just like nahh. Like, "oh, maybe I shouldn't eat my weight in cheese crackers," but you kinda end up doing it anyways. I feel like there is one, it feels like a word that probably starts with a p- but honestly, I don't have a single idea. There's no way antihabit is an actual word, but that's the beauty of Panem's language and not so much the beauty of trying to rush an essay twenty minutes before class in a male bathroom stall. In our grand language we can just make things happen, create a word out of nothing, like "fucking dumb," the exact quote of what I just scratched onto my essay.

Maybe if I start saying it more it'll become a thing.

Honestly, a great antihabit of mine is english; I mean, in the long run how the hell will being able to identify the central theme compared between "Sea Fever" and "The Underground" help me get anywhere in a field of medicine. I'm not even the one who signed up for the class, the counselors signed me up and expected me to show up. Maybe my first mistake here was showing up, I mean, I know I didn't show up today but I had a valid excuse of having to force myself into the extraneous work of going nowhere in life.

It's all just a shade of grey, so I just go, after throwing the solid D- into the closest urinal. Besides, it's not like english misses me any, it's just a prerequisite. Another antihabit of mine (or maybe it's just called a bad habit, that's no fun) bad habit of mine (nope I don't like it, english is a joykill anyways, I win this time) antihabit of mine is having absolutely positively not a single damn thing to do every time after storming out of that bathroom. I do this a lot you see, because it's more fun than sitting in a class room counting how many times my heart beats until I die of boredom. But I just waste away time avoiding unproductivity by being even more unproductive.

Just on my own terms now.

Bless my soul, in my grandma's terms, the bell rings before I have to fake tying and retying my shoes just to kill time while time kills me. Though, the glory of school was just how unproductive I could be the rest of the day and somehow sometimes still make up for it during lunch; you see careers train in gyms, and drug dealers train in high school cafeterias. Rooms filled with hundreds of crazed hormones are usually the best selling place, you see, because nobody wants to waste another few hours in grey. Everybody just wants to see some colors instead of watching their lives fade, I guess, that's what I learned from my parents.

It's an easy market too, all you need to do is find the most bored out of their mind loner who probably looks like your neighborhood Stevie Masinova knockoff, because let's be honest who can pull all of this off as well as me. For a good amount they're all for stuffing my wallet, and it's like a challenge in some squads too. Jocks like to compete with each other how much they can replace their blood with, and I guess that's good for business. Some times people buy from me just because some others think I don't actually exist, and I can guess why considering I have skipped a total of 24 school days out of this semester's 45 so far. Perks of being a junior, I can just snatch one of my dad's rehab doctor notices and still pass. 

Of course, that kind of anonymousity is great, not for actual business but just a general concept. Though it makes me laugh a little, like imagine a poltergeist that just handed kids drugs, would you actually take it or just run off first. Honestly, I think I'd run first but instead I'm too busy approaching this one girl. I know I've seen her face somewhere but uhh, I don't know, I see a lot of faces and it helps not to remember names, that way if they get arrested I'm no help. This girl isn't a murderer or a thief though, just a white girl. Yeah, I've definitely seen her before in my life, I'm pretty convinced when I sit down; more accurately resting down, since in all honesty all this unproductivity is really tiring, my back's slumped into the area where legs are meant to go and the back of my head is on the edge of the table.  

I finger gun my forehead and crack a smile towards her, first impressions always been an antihabit of mine you see, the same with english and trying, but even though I have no idea what the hell to make of this girl sometimes you just gotta get through it. At the end of the day, my third bag pocket is armed with pills to sticks and they have to be sold somehow. Let me at least gift some of it to somebody who's interesting.

"-you belong to me,
this ain't a noose, this is a leash,
and I have news for you, you must obey me."