The world—or so it had seemed—promised us

the American coming-of-age moving-away-from-home college-living rite-of-passage dream. 

I learned then no one 

has to keep a promise, but I promised myself anyway

I would be better than that. To practice, I promise myself

a lilikoi bar from Sconees Bakery after getting up at 4 to go to class. 

When the pandemic began, I was stuck dreaming 

about high school for nights on end, this oddly brighter version 

where classes were shorter and homework was easy.

There were classrooms with no doors, impossible staircases, 

domed greenhouses, and the chicken stew lunches. I dreamed of my violin teacher

down the hall on random Thursdays popping her head in the window

spying on everyone because she was tall. I dreamed of her 

sitting at the piano greeting me with an embrace 

only to vanish inside my arms. I dreamed of being stuck on campus 

as a ghost, only perceptible to my friend I was crushing on 

and my second violin teacher, who knew I was hungover 

with a loyalty and loss I couldn’t describe. 

I still can’t describe it. And I never told my friend anything, 

nor did I tell anyone I wandered in a senseless dance to rhythms only I 

could hear. I never really stopped hearing them. I never really

stopped feeling like we had only been living senselessness, spun

to a macabre, a rite for sacrifice, around a pyre engulfing our futures. 

On the roadside TheBus 1 Kahala groans up Waialae. 

My dad has been trying to teach me driving 

on our Honda SUV, practicing on this same road. 

The car is old and doesn’t accelerate very well. 

He spilled white paint inside of it and it’s really gross now. 

I wait for the smell of exhaust to pass before biting

into the saccharine tang of my lilikoi bar.