Photographic artwork by Kris Saknussemm
Alma Mater
Children sit at desks covered in the dust of peers
before them. Green books with an aging list of
faceless names carved into the covers—prehistoric:
dating back long before my career…their births—
are held by youthful hands. Books down! Rise for the
Pledge! These words run off my tongue the same
way they have for the last seven years. I am young,
yet I am old in the eyes of my beholders, though
they don't notice the sly silver hairs peeking out
from my scalp or the way crows feet have landed
on the once-smooth surface of my face. I can easily
slide into these developing minds and understand
the life they experience and its differences from
the world I have lived through, but one day, perhaps
soon, that wealth of knowledge will run itself dry,
and then I will be old, and even older than before
to these juvenile faces that scrutinize my behaviors,
anxiously waiting to write me off as another adult
disconnected from the ever-changing trends of
society. The bell rings, and a stampede floods the
doorway before goodbye could even touch my
lips. I examine the room: on the floor, forgotten
pencils patiently wait to be picked up alongside
papers pressed against the walls with no purpose
of being there, or anywhere really. Carelessness:
a luxury I have not afforded since I left this exact
room twelve—or was it fifteen?—years ago. The
next group arrives, some with courtesy smiles, the
rest too tired to pretend, and the cycle begins again.
