Have you ever seen the wind blow over a trash can?

And then, did you see it roll down the street, spilling out papers like lost secrets?

That's what middle school was like for me.

Sometimes it was awful, but other times, I wanted to tear a piece of notebook paper out of my binder and capture the exact moment. 

Bits and pieces of words were everywhere, like song lyrics floating through the static of a red boombox.

I could see the words seeping through the blinds... sometimes they were colorless and bland, while others they were vibrant streaks on sunlight.

They crawled across the floor and slid across the wood panels, leaving marks the could not be erased. 

They were written in dark ink. Dotted i's and curly q's and mishapen g's... they were the clouds in the sky. 

The grass were little green warriors fighting the wind.

The desks were palaces with subjects scrawled across their table tops.

My eyes were filled with blue wintery phrases.

My mouth was blessed with sweet and sour sentences.

I could smell the spicy words from miles away.

I wanted to write them down.