WRITING & POETRY
CASSETE PLAYER
An old black plastic cassette player. The edges scuffed and the play button stuck. Resting on a kindergarten table, pressed against the back wall. Small orange chairs, too little for grownups to sit in, horseshoed around the miniature table. I was near the end of the horseshoe, next to my best friend Jenna, whose thick black curls caused jealousy all around. "Who would like to go first" I heard from the teacher. I glanced around eager to go, but not willing to volunteer myself. I felt a poke into the side of my right arm, like a stick had just gouged me while running through the woods. Jenna whispered with her eyes for me to go. I stood up with my hot pink, calf length leggings, and a huge shirt that I stole from my big brother's closet that morning, with a brown wicker belt tied around my waist. The teacher bent down towards me and smiled, the same smile my mom has when teaching her computer class, sweet and questionable. The teacher reached out her hands, and said, "Would you like to go sweetheart". I nodded ready to strut my stuff. I handed her the double-sided kareoke cassette tape, pointing to side A. My mom got me that tape at the kareoke store at Northcross mall, where the same man who traded that tape for money still works. The teacher led with her wrinkled arm for me to go stand in the middle of the horseshoe near the old, scuffed, cassette player.
EJECT