First Day of University

Here it is. Room 204.

Just breathe.

As I step through the corridor and into my future, I clutch the straps of my backpack for dear life. This knapsack has piggybacked since, high school. Sophomore year to be exact. My grasp on it, a hiraeth. It seems to return my embrace. Its tattered arms have been stitched to its body, after detaching, more than once. More than twice. Yet, it hangs on to me. Steady. Its hug, intense. I can't tell whether its nostalgia is comforting or hindering. Is this what love feels like?-

It brings my mind to wander, if this is how our parents felt whenever they were forced to abandon our little arms that beckon for their company after their alarming devices continuously reminded them of their duties to perform unloveable and exacerbating, labor for Uncle Sam. The only reward being the capability to keep those yearning little arms warm, clean, and growing.

Or maybe, if it's more like, the friends who are so very proud of your bougie and "sophisticated," black ass for wanting to sprout from the rock you all were planted in. But you had to decline an insisting request for your appearance at the house party the night before, despite you informing and reminding them of your whereabouts the next morning.

Or perhaps, It's just like the slightly older boyfriend that'd always kept you fed and looking fly. That had a love for you so intense that he'd want you to skip school just to be in his arms. And a little too often, at that.

-I wonder if it shares the same fear as everything and everyone, around me. I wonder if it just as afraid of my blossoming, as is the hood I grew up in. As I am.

The urge to do an about-face and sprint, engulfs me. My knees feels queasy. My feet are like bricks.

WHY do my legs feel like sticks in a floor of cement?

Just breathe.

Inhale. Exhale.

The girls that arrived the same time I did, walk around me and find two seats in our pool of peers. They sit. I must've been moving too slow for them. My breath gets panicky.

Inhale...

The sweet, reminiscent smell of Warm Vanilla pinches my proboscis and in prances a bodacious blend of every personality sitting before me.

My heart is thudding against my rib cage, as if to say it wants out.

As my eyes veer from one side, to the other, and back again, I observe so many exquisite recreations of myself, and they within me.

So, this is what a HBCU looks like, huh?

Nice.

Now, Carefully, walk to your seat.

A seat. The nearest one.

No!, no. The one nearest the professor's desk.

My glasses decided not to accompany me, today. They must've concluded that they'd get more shut eye on my nightstand than on my head.

My sight devours such a vast array of browns. All unrelenting in radiancy. Their hair like mine. I am privileged to be witnessing every style that has ever crossed an ancestors' mind, mine, all at once on display before me.

Cornrows, silk presses, Bantu Knots, Locks...

Maybe what I feel is pride.

Are those locks? Oooor...

WATCH! HIS! J's!

"Excuse me," I say to the gentlemen. He pleasantly obliges.

That went way smoother than it would've a year ago..

I sit. I slip my left arm through its designated strap. My bookbag slids down my right arm, the wrist, and into the hand it's attached to. I place it on the section of table in front of me.

I bring the zipper from one side, all the way up and across and to the opposite. I remove a notebook. The pink one with silver spirals. College rule. 100 pages. I return the zipper to its origin and open the smaller compartment. I retrieve a pen. It's ink is blacker than jet black. It's manufactured by Paper Mate. And that it truly is.

A small grin grows upon my lips thinking about how beautiful my penmanship will look. Joy swells, imagining the mesmerizing permanent carving, staining the paper's white flesh as I take my notes. It'll be beautiful, yes, but permanent nonetheless. I continue on and receive the white-out tape, also from the smaller pouch.

There's no such thing as too cautious.

The sudden recollection of my location, murders that tiny joy. I glance over each shoulder, searching for the uneasiness that is haunting me.

I wonder if anyone here can tell how old I am..

Or if they'll laugh if I get something wrong..

Or if they're as brutal as the younger versions of themselves and will consider me laughingstock if I stutter...

What if I graduate as Valedictorian?

...Who would be there to hear me give my speech?

Bare witness to my blood, sweat, and literal tears as they pour over the entire arena's existing...

Those words might flourish in someone's mind as inspiration, others as a hell...

I need to relax. There's always the chance that I won't succeed...

Wait. What if I don't succeed?

What if.. I.. FAIL...

My heart is pounding through my chest again.

INHALE. e x h a l e.

"Wash away any negative thoughts that assume they've received an invitation. Envision only what you want to become."

Just breathe.

A timid, "Excuse me," tramples through my plethora of thoughts.

As I'm moving to create a path for her, I glance up and to my surprise we are wearing the same expression. As if telepathically, I knew exactly what she was thinking.

As she takes the seat beside me, we sigh in unison. It feels like a "me too." Or an "I've got this." We've got this.

That alleviates some stress of mine and I believe for her as well. The worse-some thoughts we'd previously shared, levitates from our beings, dissipating into the atmosphere around us.

I belong here. So does she. As does everyone around us.

We've got this. Just breathe.