Deep Meditation on Eternal Truths

(Thought of around 8:30 this morning)

Why do Pokemon say their own names all the time?
I mean, I guess it's fitting that a Squirtle goes "Squirtle Squirtle!" But by that same token, wouldn't a turtle have to waddle around shouting "Turtle!" or a dog run around panting "Dog! Dog!"?

Last week of classes (if you couldn't tell). Hello delirium.

Late Night Experiments in Poetics

I'm done.
I can feel the weight of academia lifting from my shoulders. Only for a few minutes, though.
I take a little time to think, take a drink of water.

It's the end of the year.
I'm usually looking too far ahead,
All week I've been fast-forwarding: Tuesday was Thursday, Wednesday was Friday.
And yet I can feel time stretching out behind me.
It's a comfortable feeling. People always complain about how fast things go,
How years of personal history seem to disappear, how "The End" is coming up too fast.
How frightened they are of the open-ended void that awaits them after their education is over.

I take down my dad's watch, the ancient digital one I used to wear over the summer.
I haven't worn it since I got here. I doubt it's moved since I placed it on my bookshelf in August.
I wipe away the thin layer of dust on its face, and find myself both shocked and reassured by how long this year has taken to complete.
My life will be long enough, I think.


------

Hey hey! It's like prose with funny line divisions!
More like this to come maybe.

Come, Clarity

They've been showing up around the campus for a week or so now.
Ever since the sun came out of hiding little chalk drawings have been popping up everywhere. One on the stairs leading up from the library, one above the Terrace dining hall, a big five or six panel series on the Towers.
They're pretty damn cute. "Patience, my dear." "All you need is love." And, my personal favorite, "Don't go to class! Ok, fine, go. But don't let school get in the way of your education."

One of my dad's favorite words is "smarmy," that's one of the first words that came to my head once the little pop of gratitude I felt at seeing the drawings passed. Cute, idealistic, hopelessly naive. Public Safety thinks so too; several were washed away after a day or so.
Within the drawings, though, is a rare, cheerful kind of emotion. You see faded imitations of it in cartoons and romantic comedies all the time: that bright, glinting little flash of warmth and innocence, hints of new beginnings.

You could spend your entire life looking for the truth behind the lie the emotion represents: fairness. The overwhelming weight of your own experience, the tar and bricks from your past, blocks it out. It passes by occasionally, peeking through cracks, glancing down from the top of your prison, and departs without reason, leaving poison and broken glass in the pit of your stomach. The only things left to feel after the light leaves are the little rocks that bite into your hands and legs, the dirt on the floor, the chill of darkness.

Yet in spite of all the dirt and sludge being flung at us from every direction --the slime that clings to our minds and buries us with guilt and bitterness-- there are still one or two people left on South Hill who can say,

"Hey,
World,
fuck off."

Oh you hopelessly misguided few, keep drawing.