Everything I could say about the past four years is plastered across the walls of Gresham High School, has been whispered into every corner, or thought at every moment sat in small plastic chairs. Everything I could say is the undying ghost that has always and will always flow throughout the halls: Everywhere, yet benevolent; ready like nothing else to jump into the likeness of each and every fresh new face destined to walk through these doors and experience it all for themselves every new school year.

I think of a shy kid in a new school older than he can imagine in practical comprehension, whose floors stretch out and weave farther and deeper than seems interpretable. Whose teachers seem somehow so much more intimidating this time.

I think of new peers so different yet so similar, with smiles so welcoming and frowns so concerning. Laughs like dynamite with bursts of bright amber flower petals, and anguished yells like broken landslides of deeply-bitter stone.

I think of love like nothing that has ever been nor will ever be. Disdain like that, somehow, has always been.

I think about all that has died and will be born within the humanity of those that have and will walk by the ancient phantom of Gresham High School. Who wields, as it forever will, outstretched arms, and stubborn grasps.

Of light-scattered memories of stressed time-crunches and care-free escapade.

Days of respect and nights of relief.

Tethering lines as though hot-pink yarn between us all. Delicate. But sure to be cut, for the most part. Eventually.

And the understanding of this reality.

And acceptance, really. In one way or another.

I think of hair-pulling frustration in the contemplation of it all, and the desire to weep tears of joy in sensations like rushing hair in the midnight air.

Nothing mattered and yet everything did.

And doesn’t that feel just perfect?

Perfect.

So smudged, but brilliant.

Every part of a rainbow, with the sun blinding it with no restraint just behind.

A stained-glass window.

And 4 years being shone on beneath.