ANTHEM FOR THE CLASS OF 2021 SOO GYUNG BAK (she/her) G12 STUDENT
I’ve been asked to write, a poem, an anthem for the titter-totter of our feet, barely adults we’re still kids when laid along the length of the universe, it’s sweet, that we’re almost at the last floor of this tower, tonight, and with foot off the edge of a building sky high I swear we’ll be alright, remember each room we left breathless, or entered collapsing, imploding frustration, self-deprecation, struggling to find the next breath, yet somehow we’ve found our ways here today and tomorrow is only a few twirls of the hour hand away so who’s to say we can’t make it to tomorrow, and so we breathe, and so we reminisce. Remember middle school, and its hesitance that grew from easy consequence, what was serious we know now isn’t and it’s hard to realise but the foolishness of youth wasn’t foolish at the time, and that’s just fine. just breathe. we had the map tests, with the capitals for bonus marks to get, the taste of hi-chew and white rabbit, plus design class don’t forget it’s “may I go to the washroom” not “can I” Mr. Gilley, it’s the taste of challenge to figure out what you found fun. recall discomfort, recall chatter, squirming under sweat-slick skin with the rush from PE, the change room between 2 classes almost akin to quicksand as we begin to tiptoe among gym bags,
half the lockers untrustworthy, and the air with its humidity, tis puberty, humour me, liberty’s middle school’s property— remember dancing? before COVID’s rapid spiel, when hand in hand and breath in breath we would just bounce like awkward seals against the floor in time to swing, in time to salsa, hiphop, jazz, the bitter pills of showcase on the backtrack. and what of Kirkwood? that we watched get trounced like every homeroom but Ms. Brunswick’s. when fidget spinners were the thing, clever fingers selling slime, entrepreneurs shut down because “that’s a parallel market” and teachers banned it but that’s not why, because slipping into the world of media and news we became startlingly aware of what money does to people. Unit of account, store of value, econ students we know, sure, but perhaps the friendships of grade 8 could have crumbled under the allure of money. we’ve lived pre-COVID, breathed preTrump, mere 8th graders brushing back hair behind ears on the blurred doorstep of chaos. when Toradora and Charlotte still saw the light of day, when Eagle Starter Band was ‘bout to be the talk of town with chant of trains on water, boats on tracks, those are the times that we can never quite get back but we’re not Orpheus, and we’re
all allowed to still look back. for when we get lonely in the skin of teens that we’ll soon shed like winter coats seeking spring and summer what isn’t forgotten won’t quite leave. First time sitting exams in the gym, half of us finished with still an hour left on the clock, sitting ducks in the cold of the squeaky gym floors, squeaky foldable desks and the chair legs. And so they count heads, while we count threads either bored out of our minds or stupid anxious because those were our exams! And that was 3 years ago. Time skip, step into the senior school, dancing on the edge just flitting hops as we navigate the chasm of DP while still tethered to the kindness of the MYP, extended math crushed many, but I’m sure it’s better now, I hope, with the curriculum rush I’m not quite sure but it’s better than Kuroko no Basuke’s Japanese Lunchtime Rush! Torvald, Norvald, and the socratic seminars with taps on backs, April fool’s essays on theatres as vehicles of intention, grade 10, Camp Squeah, the food not the most horrible, but barefoot in the cafeteria, orienteering, haunted chapel, no coffee tea for us in sight. A few months later, Manning Park, snow flurries, crystallize your breath on sight and feel the sting the lightning sing within your nose, within your lungs from all the cold. Flattening snow
