Harry Potter Essay

In wrapping up my college application process, I finally stumbled upon the one prompt that will henceforth always stick out in my mind. The prompt that I had absolutely no trouble with whatsoever. The prompt that will make my last name a little bit more visible and (hopefully) advantageous. At the end of this long and seemingly never-ending road of unforgiving word counts, fixing, editing, scrutinizing, rereading again and again and again, and that shaky feeling you get right before you hit "submit", there is a gleaming light. For my final college essay, I got to write about Harry Potter. And to celebrate, I wanted to share. 

In the Harry Potter series, a “sorting hat” divides students into four “houses.” Each house has its own characteristics that can roughly be translated as bravery, intelligence, ambition, and duty.  If you were to create a sorting hat, upon which characteristics would you base the sort?  In which “house” would you put yourself? 

Growing up immersed in the world of Harry Potter, I was always drawn to the idea of the four different houses. Desperate to know where I fit in, and even more desperate to know why, I developed the notion that these houses could represent the different sectors of high school students. I’m surrounded by thespians and jocks, mathletes and history buffs. Everybody’s different, but somehow, everybody’s connected. And so I’d simplify the disparities into the following: creativity, logic, spirit, and diplomacy.

            Students in the house of diplomacy would be defined as tactful and judicious. They would be the speech and debate kids—the editors, the leaders, and the speakers. Sagacious and intuitive, they would handle situations in a most politic manner.

Logical students would excel in anything that involves problem-solving. They would be the thinkers—deliberate and precise. Math and science would be their language; equations and riddles would be their drugs of choice.

            In contrast, the spirited students would be the dreamers. They would be impassioned and energetic—contagiously enthused. Here one would find students with an extensive knowledge of show tunes or outstanding athletic ability. Fervent and driven, they would pour their heart and soul into everything.

            The final house would be for the creative ones—the artists. Bright. Resourceful. Their common room would be littered with scribbled poems and quick sketches on paper scraps. One would find students wearing headphones and writing feverishly in notebooks. Their imaginations would run rampant, filling them up, making them whole. This would be my home. The sincerity I pour into my work and interests combines the varying convictions that would make each house unique. I choose to invest my youthful exuberance into self-development, and I seek to inspire. To create. To dream. To make the world I want out of myself. 

THE STREETS THAT RAISED ME

I wrote this piece for a college essay prompt, but I started to realize that I was feeling pretty sentimental about Cary and all this college stuff in general, so I wanted to put this out there: 

My hometown and I are dear old friends.

We fight, sometimes. We don’t always get along. There are times when we don’t speak. When I hole up in my room and I read or I watch a movie and try to forget that the world outside exists. But it eventually passes, and I miss the familiarity of my favorite restaurants and bookstores.

My hometown isn’t all that small, but I know every road like I know the back of my palm, down to each little pothole and street sign. I know where to go out to eat, and what I like to order there. I can calculate the distance between myself and nearest movie theater in a heartbeat. As a kid, I built castles in these woods and won colored ribbons in these swimming pools. I’m comfortable here. I’ve read books and written poetry and fallen in love within this suburban backdrop. Sometimes, I don’t want to leave, simply because I don’t know where I’ll end up.

There isn’t any cinematic cliff overlooking the city where I live, or a pier overlooking the ocean, or any other stargazing hotspot. In fact, not all that much is very unique about this place. But we have always tolerated each other’s shortcomings. My hometown has expanded as I’ve gotten older; we’ve grown up together.  Although there are times when all I want to do is get out, I have to give this town credit for providing me with a setting in which an incalculable number of beautiful, different things happened to me. The late night shifts at Harris Teeter. The swim meets that never ended. The two a.m. Waffle House breakfast. The midnight movie premieres. The long drives that took us all the way across town in the name of Cook-Out milkshakes. The snowfalls that stranded us in our homes for days, with only the company of tomato soup, films, and each other. The rainy high school football games I braved for yearbook photos and a free tie dye tee shirt. The people I came to know and love and trust because of all of this. 

I love my hometown. I’m excited to leave, but I guess that’s just the way that it is. Eventually, you grow up. You have to move on. You don’t have much of a choice. Some friends stay with us forever, or at least for a while. But I can’t be seventeen forever, reflecting on all that this small town has offered to me. I’m going to have to move onto something new. Make friends with new places; fall in love with a different city or town. The comfort that I have always been able to find in my hometown has facilitated an optimism inside of me that will never burn out. My hometown and I are old friends. That will always be true. But if I leave and I don’t come back, my hometown will understand, and so will I.

ALL POSSIBLE FUTURES

This is the title piece for my Thomas Wolfe scholarship portfolio. I thought that I would share:

In APUSH we learned about a naturalist named John Muir who said that “nature is only ugly if it is not wild.”

And while I enjoy a scenic view as much as the next guy, I also think there’s something alluring about the anti-salvation of urbanization—the way in which the concept of unity is translated through white-lined wedges of parking lots, lamp posts strung with stickered words, and city awnings dripping with rain.

I mean, we’ve built tunnels in the ocean. There are buildings that scrape the sky.

I like our world. I know we’ve screwed with it, a lot, but there’s not much we can do at this point other than enjoy it the way it’s become.

That’s not to say it’s not worth saving. And it’s not fair that he’ll be staring at beautiful paintings in the sky while I’m staring at beautiful paintings on white walls and we can’t be together.

Then again, all nice sunsets are merely a coalition of empyrean hues and all works of art are just systemic strokes on a canvas.

I’ve been to a few national parks. I’ve stood in the North Atlantic and felt the sea swirl around me, too baffling for any human to ever completely chart and comprehend. I’ve been rural enough to lay outside and be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stars. I’ve seen whales in white-capped waters, I’ve climbed mountains, I’ve been to famous cities and famous museums. Truthfully, though, I’d trade all of it away for him.

I’ve seen him sit in his dark room and think about the future, making caricatures with gentle fingertips on his twisted premonitions.

The lacuna inside of him was taking up space, and it sometimes felt like a leering villain and sometimes felt like his best friend.

But here’s the best kept secret I know: Life is still beautiful.

Sure, forests burn down and whales die and cities collapse on themselves, and that sucks. But somewhere in the world right now, a waterfall churns itself over a jagged ledge and into a clear pool, cradled by a bowl of solid rock. And there might be nobody there to see it. Even though violence and destruction may fulminate from time to time, there is no abeyance of beauty in this world. Flowers sprout from piles of rubble. Lightning leaves timeless scars on tree trunks. Nature’s contumacious attitude creates magic in places it theoretically shouldn’t.

So do not lose faith in our sad little planet just because trash litters sidewalks and gas-guzzling cars circumspect tired old roads. Forgive the ignorance of humanity. Forgive the forgetful, the broken, the tired, the lazy, the guilty, the lonely. Forgive the world for beating the shit out of itself.

I forgive it because he’s here, standing next to me, braving this capacious imbroglio we have so ignorantly deemed “life.”

I’d still lay quietly with him even if the world were literally splitting apart at the seams, magma seeping from cracked slabs of rock and mountain tops tumbling into the ocean.  

POETIC JUSTICE

the first time we spoke I asked you to 

write me something beautiful.

do you remember that?

and you did, you did,

and it was so beautiful that it

brought tears to my eyes. And I 

went home and laid down and I cried,

you didn’t know that. Now, I hope, 

now maybe you do.

I probably took that for granted

and I'm sorry.

I was far away from you that night.

Too far. 

Opposite ends

of a stupid floating piece of land.

But I could still talk to you 

when I needed to,

because we have phones and emails 

and letters and

dumb shit like that.

Maybe I didn’t text you enough times, if I had,

maybe you’d still be here,

you know?

Maybe I could've stopped you

Maybe if I'd called you and

you had told me about the storm

I would've been able to tell you

to stay put and wait

until it passed. 

I’m sorry if I sound angry.

You know how in books and 

movies the bad

phone calls always come at night,

like, right in the middle of the night,

like, at three a.m.?

I thought that was just one of those

things that only happens in books and

movies, but it doesn’t. You must

know that now. 

You must know everything now,

wherever you are, 

maybe you know all the truths

that us stupid idiots back here

know nothing of. 

Three a.m. and I got a phone call

that split all the seams open. 

Everything just

collapsed.

Eighty five miles an hour on

an exit ramp, they said.

You lost control, they said,

and then I did too.

I'm sorry, somebody said. 

It sounded disconnected,

as if it wasn't actually 

coming from the

phone, as if somebody 

were actually

with me in my dark room, 

talking to me. I wanted it to be 

your voice so badly that 

for a while I believed it was. 

But it was me, I realized that. 

As soon as you were gone I 

started going crazy,

talking to myself. 

You know what's weird is that I didn't 

cry immediately that night.

I went to the bathroom 

and turned on the tub faucet and the 

sink faucet and I just 

tried to process it,

process the fact that I'd 

never see you smile again 

or hear you laugh or anything

like that.

"I'm not here.

This isn't happening."

Sweetheart, why were you driving so fast?

Sweetheart, why the hell did you do that?

If I had been there

I’d have told you to slow down,

not drive like a fucking idiot in the rain.

Why were you driving so fast?

Why were you driving so fucking fast?

Three a.m. and I haven’t gone back to

sleep since.

I can’t fall asleep. I find myself crying

at least five times a day now,

choking sobs that rack your entire

body. It’s hard for me to get in a car

because I just remember you sitting

in the passenger seat when you were here

and you’d drive with me 

and you were safe.

But now you've disappeared 

completely and I'm holding

one of your tee shirts in my

hands and it doesn't smell 

like you anymore but 

I feel like I can still 

touch you if I try hard enough,

like you're somehow 

trapped in the cotton fibers

and that this will somehow

make it better. 

At your funeral I said 

a few words. It’s not like

they meant anything. 

You couldn't hear me.

The casket was closed. They said 

it was because you were

thrown from your car. That’s all they told

me, but I overheard somebody whispering

about how your

skull was basically smashed to pieces.

I still think you’re beautiful.

Even with glass embedded in your skin,

blood drenching your pretty clothes,

I still think you’re beautiful.

But I feel bad. I should’ve

written you a eulogy

I should’ve eulogized you 

because all the white flowers

and all the weeping people in black 

didn't 

do you any of the poetic justice

you deserved,

but I just couldn’t find the words,

I can’t find the words 

without you here.

I can’t find any words anymore,

when people ask me how I’m doing 

or if I need

anything, I just smile and it feels wan

and I think I’m becoming a ghost.

Did you become a ghost?

Or did you go somewhere

beautiful? Tell me, please. 

I can't bear to think

that there are secrets between us

now, I want to know about 

this beautiful place you must be in.

I hope you're not sad,

wherever you are 

and I hope it's warm and 

pretty and you can smell flowers still. 

But come back, please, touch me

with your cold hands.

I know you were pretty mad

before you died. I had been distant,

literally, figuratively. I was busy, 

I wasn’t lying

but if I had known,

god, if I had known

shit, if I had only fucking known,

I would’ve dropped everything and

held you one last time, 

I wouldn’t let

you touch that steering wheel,

do anything stupid,

I'd take you in my arms and never

let go, tie you down 

to the bed if I had to just to 

keep you safe,

kiss you and hug you and tell

you I'd never let you get hurt,

that it'd be better this way,

trust me, I'd say,

I've seen the alternative.

I’d take you in my arms, 

darling, I’d

keep you close and warm in bed with me,

I wouldn’t let you go anywhere, 

you couldn’t

go anywhere.

You’re a fucking bitch 

for dying on me.

I’m trying to be angry so 

that it hurts less but it’s

taking a lot of work and 

I’m exhausted and like I said,

sleep brings no solace.

All I can think about is the 

last time I kissed you,

I keep going back 

to that moment,

I don’t remember where we

were but I think it was 

either your room or mine and

it was a while ago and it was brief but 

you loved me

and I loved you and 

I could taste it on your tongue.

Fuck you.

There’s nobody left for me to talk to.

So I’m coming to meet you, 

I’m coming to meet you

because the world is so fucking 

boring when

you don’t exist in it and

I tried to visit your grave but they

haven't been taking care of the grass

and apparently there's a famous poet

buried in the same cemetery 

and I thought about how unfair 

that is because you're probably in heaven

talking to him right now 

and he's probably writing you all these 

nice poems and you must be so happy

and all I have is a stone,

just a stone with some words written 

on it and it can’t speak to me

and tell me everything that 

I need to hear and

maybe it’s selfish but 

I’m coming to meet you,

I’m coming to meet you,

right now,

so please, please

let me-- 

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Frozen construction ponds.

That’s where I first learned 

the meaning of “adventure”.

Where I’ve grown up 

there’s no cinematic cliff

overlooking the city, 

no scenic ocean pier.

We’d walk on those ponds

and pretend

we were ice skating.

And that brown ice somehow held,
and it cradled our youthful dreams,

built up like the mossy lean-tos

that we would construct 

in the woods 

behind our houses.

Simplicity tainted everything back then.

Do you remember?

Nothing could touch us,

or so we rightfully believed.

Early on I was

plagued only by things like

pre-algebra or provincial facebook posts.

Existing in an age

where screens have the ability to

stain fingertips;

everything is a few clicks away 

which is both

scary and comforting.

Years pass and the concern is no longer

summer swim team relays or
dystopian novels.

The plots of Harry Potter
books are brought up

mostly in reminiscent conversations;

cartoons are a circumstantial pass time

and no longer a Saturday morning event.  

There’s always something new:  

a different band,

a different haircut,

different friends.

Evolution is the norm.

There's this pressure to pick 

the best version of yourself

in the midst of a 

whirlwind of hormones and 

shaky hands and first concerts.

Firsts, there are plenty.

First kisses and first fights and

first times and first failures.

Some firsts
I couldn't help but wonder,
vaguely,
if I was still too young. 

I’ve struggled with everything,

from my the width of my thighs to

my subpar geometry grades.

What boys thought of me,

what my friends thought of me.

Growing pains came in the form of

scars concealed by a

friend’s ill-fitting sweatshirt sleeves;

the first time I had to hold

somebody while they fell apart.

Some nights I vividly remember

crying myself to sleep over

some triviality or another.

Tear stained pillows are a rite of passage,

I suppose.

The bulletin board in my room has seen

every change in the timeline,

every shift, every tilt.

A tangible representation of a

very

good life.

My bookshelf filled up, so did my walls.

And so did my heart, when I opened myself up

to people and things

I’d been afraid to let in.

I added, subtracted,

multiplied.

I found out my favorite foods

and favorite movies,

who I wanted to keep around,

and what it felt like to drive a car

alone

for the first time.

Good music fell into my hands

like a precious gem.

I found songs that

fit me like a glove,

I wielded them, my tiny secret weapons.

And it all happened so fast.

I'm trying to catch my breath.  

I have regrets because

I feel like they’re healthy—

the beers we shared on the beach because

we thought it would be cool,

the times I erupted, yelled too loudly,

the times I let people hurt me,

did too much for those who barely did

anything for me.

I'll learn from these things,

I swear.

I’m not impenetrable.

I am young

and for a tough kid,

my unshakable sentiment

contradicts me.

I am small and I accept that.

I have my daily doubts.

What if one of us dies before 

I get to hold your hand again?

Before we get to watch another movie 

on your too big couch

and gorge ourselves on Chinese food?

Before we get to drive 

with the windows down to nowhere

on a sun-drunken summer evening?

Loss is the axiom of growing up.

What you lose depends on you
and you alone.

It manifests somewhere between
your seventh birthday

and the time you’re twenty-two
and throwing your last

graduation cap into the air.

Because when you're seventeen
you're waiting for eighteen
and then you're twenty and
waiting for twenty-one
and then you're waiting
for something else
that you haven't even
put a name to yet. 

Suddenly that half-life of
half-hearted attempts 

at a full-fledged future

are not for naught.

The times when you used to
hide from thunderstorms

under the kitchen table

seem very far away

and yet.

There are more storms to come.

I know that. 

I’m still afraid,

and rightfully so.

For now I am here

and trying to be cool about it.

The people that are leaving,

the people that have already left

without either of us realizing it,

they all meant something to me.

Some days, I’ll admit,

I want to hurt somebody

because the distance seems to hurt

only me.

I’m trying to save

the best parts of myself

for a time when I feel more sure.

I’d rather you all be happy
and far away

than up close and miserable.

Me, I’ll spend one more thunderstorm

hiding under the kitchen table.

One more Saturday morning,

safe and lazy and in bed.

One more sunset

in the Cook-Out parking lot.

And then I’ll be ready.  

I’ve seen heaven once.

In a daydream or a piece of literature

or my lover’s eyes—I’m not sure.

But it was beautiful.

And it was quiet, but it was never lonely.

You could hear only the tomorrows

of a patient past-life

floating on candy-colored breezes,

whispered from hushed lips.

It was quiet.

It was never lonely.

One day I hope I’ll be found there.

When all is said and done.

When my own personal

“THE END” comes with

the most beautiful sky

anyone has ever seen.

In a place where mortal truths

are locked in people’s glass hearts

and preserved

forever. 

A Shark Bait's Eulogy

People are always telling me
how it's more likely
to be struck by lightning.
"There's no reason to be afraid,"
they'll all say,
which is easy to believe
before looking down and realizing
there's a comfortable hundred yards
between them and the waterline.
A perfect littoral hiding place.
Three fourths of our planet
and most of us are too terrified
to admit that the
allure of the sea
extends watercolor currents
and views that merit
million dollar beachfront realty.
Tiny sailboats
on sun-soaked horizons.
Plastic formulated sandcastles,
family portraits in white
at sunset.

There have only been
two thousand reported shark attacks
in the last four hundred years.
Over a thousand people
under the age of twenty-five die
per day
in car accidents.
And yet we'll speed
on congested highways
without a second thought
but not a toe is dipped
into the Atlantic
after dusk.

Relativity is risk's biggest downfall.
I can't count
the number of times
I've sprinted up the stairs
without even thinking
about the probability
of losing my footing
and smashing my skull
on the next step.
But the ocean, man,
it wigs me out
And I don't recall a time
when I was ever
amongst breaking waves,
completely at peace.

I've thought of death only casually--
compared it to simply
shutting off the lights,
or falling asleep forever.
On days it would feel like
it wouldn't matter
too much
if I were gone,
how, then
I wouldn't have to deal with
all of the coming uncertainties
and the mess that would
inevitably follow.
"It's been pretty good so far,
it's only a matter of time before
I fuck up."

But that's a cowardly mentality
and my crippling fear
of hurting other people
took care of that problem,
anyway.

Fear--it's ubiquitous.
Afraid of heights
Afraid of hospitals
Afraid of the dark.
These things separate
us from sharks--
as apex predators,
they fear
virtually nothing.
It is a presence that is
felt beyond
their watery province.
Distant sightings clear beaches,
shock waves ripple outward
from a surfer's
phantom limb
(The heroic tale
of being mistaken for a seal).
In minutes,
the guilty motherfucker
is gone,
stalking another school of fish,
but his star quality
will land him
a prime time slot
on tonight's news.

Maybe if sharks
were aware of their popularity,
they'd be more ruthless,
terrorize more coastal communes.
They'd live up
to the movie myths
and Discovery Channel speculations.
Somehow,
with their thick gray bodies
and emotionless black eyes,
they've won our silly human hearts
as much as
any other carnivorous dinosaur.
And their teeth hang
around our necks
on tacky leather cords
--an artless testimony
to our fascination
with the forces
we can't control.

The sad fact
is that I've never seen
"Save the Sharks!"
printed on buttons and tee shirts.
How can you revere
a creature that possesses
such raw power,
such fatal indiscretion?

But how can you not?

I like to believe that
if it came to it
I'd let a shark have me.
I invaded his territory,
fucked with his mealtime.
A maritime murder
is a fitting death sentence
for someone
who spent so much time
naively contemplating the deep.
It's a classic case
of fatal happenstance
and if Jaws started circling,
I like to think that
it'd be
just as
cinematic.

It'd be a terrifying way to go
but surely more dignified
than choking on a chicken bone.
But, who knows?
Maybe I'd still fight back
with everything I had
just to be able to tell people
that there is a reason to be afraid.

Suicide by shark attack--
how pathetic,
how impossible.
A pretentious,
noncommittal way out.
Mortality isn't common enough--
mostly the shark bites
just to fuck with you
And surfer bloodshed
is certainly more noble
than my own.

Death and sharks.
Comparatively,
there's no correlation.
The tides were never ours
for the taking,
but we decided that
sharks are scary
and now a tiny cut
will beach you
until the bleeding subsides.

So if I die
in the jaws
of that
aquatic serial killer--
a salt water surrender
to his finned finesse--
know that I'd find it poetic
And I'd be trying
not to be afraid
the whole
gory
way
down.

How Not to Get Lost

As a young writer just starting out, you don’t really get a lot of playing time.

Let me define that a little bit more coherently—you don’t get your name in lights, or pep rallies, or people holding up posters, or pasta parties, or hats, or confetti, or champagne explosions, or trophies, or state championship titles, or spirit days, or galleries, or big games. At least, not at first. There may be book signings and fancy events and pats on the back down the road, if you’re lucky. Office parties, black sharpies, movie adaptations, pay raises. If you're lucky. But, for now, you’re stuck.

Writing is a quiet life, and any writer will admit this to you. There isn’t a lot of honor that accompanies having your name splashed across some paperback cover. In all honesty, to most people, an author’s name means nothing. And consider a journalist, slaving for hours before a huge deadline to perfect that one tiny article that only a handful (give or take) will take the time to pour over. Sure, you get credit, but where’s the applause? Where’s the fanfare? Oh, right.

People may say that I didn’t try hard enough. Maybe I didn’t invest enough time into my blog, maybe I didn’t share enough of my work. And yeah, maybe some of this is true. But think about what it means to be a (slightly) better-than-average writer (and I don't mean, in any way, to put myself on a pedestal--writing is probably one of the sole things that I do relatively well, one of the only things that has ever made any sense to me. That's all I'm saying). Essays usually aren't a problem. With a solid foundation, you can bang one out in maybe an hour. Reading is both pleasurable and absolutely horrible--either you're getting lost in a story or you're overwhelmingly jealous of someone else's recognized talent (“why didn’t I think to phrase it like that?”). You start inadvertently familiarize yourself with a lot of words that people don't use that often in normal conversation—short term, this can inhibit you, but it will ultimately (hopefully) benefit you in the long-run. And you think of things in different ways. You may even notice things that other people usually don't, or at least put words to these things in your mind. The weather isn't just sunny--sunlight is spreading itself sluttily over tight downtown shops, jading all that lurks in the shadows. His eyes aren't just blue--his eyes are a deep, hapless hue that refurses to pledge its allegiance to either the hopes and dreams of his deterring past or his capacious future. These are the things your ninth grade English teacher tried to teach you. This is how your mind works. This is what happens when you grow up on a diet of Harry Potter novels and an early interest in the cynicism of alternative rock, prematurely divulging into YA lit and watching too many movies that may have been above your maturity level. Honestly, I don't know why I love to write. I can't really explain it. We'll just live in blissful ignorance. Of course, on top of this all-consuming desire to create, there are about a thousand other day-to-day responsibilities of a normal teenaged kid, like studying for actual classes so you can get the grades that will matter if you want to go to that one specific college and major in that one specific thing. So you can’t really take much time out of your day to write a short story, format a poem, type up a blog post, or, even, god forbid, journal. There were nights during my second semester of junior year when I was absolutely itching to just write one tiny line down and exhaustion from all of my other academic responsibilities crept up on me and the thought was lost forever. Gone.

Strategically, they don't tell you about the burdens of being a decent writer. How many young people can name the best-selling authors of today? How many people read all of the copy in a yearbook? How many people read all of the text in magazines instead of just skimming the photos? How many people get excited about the releases of new novels? How many people get excited about poetry? How many people can actually recognize good writing? And here's what's worse--besides youth readings and poorly publicized competitions, there isn't much opportunity for young writers to make names for themselves. Student publications might pave some stepping stones, but that's about it. If you're not on your school newspaper or yearbook staff, you're not technically doing much. And other kids don't really care. It's all about the athletes; the kids that can punt a ball, run fast, do things that can probably be easily learned. I'm not trying to discredit the virtues of physical activity, or even the glorification of school spirit in regards to football (Ok, maybe I am a little bit), but why isn't there spirit for us quiet crusaders? The ones who can't really do anything all that fancy with our bodies. The kids who are weirdly good at math, or drawing, or writing poetry. Even theater has become an easy thing to praise. I mean, you're literally on stage in front of hundreds of people, flowers are thrown at your feet. People can name dozens and dozens of actors, actresses, comedians, and TV personalities off of their heads. Your English teacher might draw a smiley face on your essay, and then what? They’ve read hundreds of other papers. That penned emoticon means absolutely nothing. It’s not like they’re chasing you down, begging you to wield your pen and take off, charging into the night, flanked by all the other brave students who can kind of write an essay. So how do I know if I’m any good?

There was a really wonderful book I read this year that touched me in a way that no other book has been able to in an extremely long time for several reasons. It was The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan. It's this collection of essays and stories that Keegan's friends and family compiled from her high school and college years, and each and every word is incredible. She writes of the bliss and accompanying ignorance of youth, the importance of believing in oneself and the world around us and the people we let into our lives, and the joys of being appreciative of the small things in life. Even in her fiction you can feel this desperation she has to move forward, to hold onto a sense of opportunity, excitement, and adventure. She was a graduate of Yale, an award-winning author, journalist, poet, actress, and activist, and she was twenty-two years old when she died in a car accident, five days after her graduation. And that terrifies me. Because people die. People actually die--they can just be going about their day to day lives and they can just die, at any random moment. And death isn't picky at all--he'll take anyone, no matter how promising their life is. "There's a really good chance I'll never do anything," Keegan wrote in her essay, Song for the Special. She was twenty-two. But, you see, she was able to do something--she had this entire reservoir of prose that she left behind and enough people who cared about her legacy to turn it all into a book that immortalized her in a sufficient two hundred and eight pages. But here's my dilemma—I don't have two hundred and eight pages. I’m five years shy of twenty-two and I don’t have anywhere close to two hundred and eight pages. I don't have anything worth sharing with the world. So, what if I die and I leave nothing behind and I'm lost? Because that's entirely possible. And that's so scary to me. While other kids my age can boast scholarships and trophies and colorful portfolios, I'm sitting in my room trying to figure out how I can even start doing what I want to do. That's literally terrifying.

I want to write something beautiful. I want to write something beautiful for you (you know who you are) and I want to write something beautiful for everybody else in this world. I want to be prolific and imaginative and smart. Because these late nights spent with a laptop and a pen have to mean something, someday. 

An Ode to Register Nine

I recently quit my job as a cashier at Harris Teeter. Disenchanting, I know, and maybe a little premature. But I have another job for the summer, so the point is that I'm financially stable (as far as a seventeen-year old's bank account goes), and now I'm less overwhelmed. You could go so far as to say that I am just simply whelmed. My junior year is drawing to a close, sure, but I have the daunting pressures of college applications falling fast upon my tired shoulders and a summer of swim coach woes ahead of me. But hey, I finished APUSH today! That scribblely chapter of my life is done! Celebrate those small triumphs, my dears. Waves of traffic light greens, that feeling after a final exam, those rare occasions when Pandora is undisputedly killing it.

Being a cashier is...interesting, which is really no surprise. Grocery stores themselves are interesting places. You'd be surprised at how much it takes to run a grocery store, or maybe you wouldn't. Maybe it's just not something many people think about all that often. One interesting thing was how quickly everybody was willing to bond with one another. My very first day, I had people introducing themselves and asking me how long I'd been working. Make no mistake, it's not a display of workplace politeness. Everybody just wants another contact they can add in case they need a shift covered. I knew a couple of people  who worked there already, so I didn't feel completely alone, but it was neat to meet other kids my age from all walks of life and chat with them during slow moments. It took me a little while to get the hang of working a register, but this was only because I didn't work very often. I changed my hours a lot, always trying to accommodate for my meager (but prevalent) social life, the stressors of eleventh grade, and my own personal need for "me" time. Different shifts have their varying pros and cons. Working in the middle of the day on the weekend merits chaos, long lines, huge orders, impatient families, but it goes by incredibly quickly. Working weekday afternoons is a little better, slower, but you're guaranteed to have enough time to read every splashy tabloid cover at least twice. Nighttime is the best and worst, simultaneously. It's always slow as hell, especially after seven. And those after-seven people are usually weird as hell. Either they're the smart yet crazy ones who decided to do their major grocery shopping late at night after everyone else has gone home, or they're those who forgot something and needed to run out quickly. If you're working until ten on a typical night, a lot of your time is devoted to mopping floors, organizing plastic bags, wiping down registers, or collecting baskets. Tedious stuff.

I'm not one for small talk anyway, so I guess cashiering was a strange profession for me to choose. I never really chatted with most customers who came through my line, just quietly rung up their orders. I got really good at bagging, if I must say so myself (nobody else really commented on this fact, but I was always careful to put like things together, make the bags a reasonable weight, and not crush any produce). Mainly I was just focused on not screwing up. It's a little bit of a whirlwind, especially when the place is busy. There's a premeditated list of things you have to say to/ ask the customer--"Hi, how are you?" (or something of the sort), "Did you find everything ok?" (or something of the sort), "Do you have a VIC card?" (or something of the sort), "Paper of plastic?" (or something of the sort). You have to make sure everything rings up, be on the look-out for coupons that might be stuck to products, recall or look up various four-digit PLU codes, communicate with your bagger (during the rare occasions that you have one helping you), process the customer's payment, scan all coupons, call over a manager to help you if a coupon doesn't scan (this happens literally every time), print the receipt, STATE, don't ask, that'd "we'd be happy to help you to your car today!", and congratulate them + partake in a paragraph long statement ("You have a chance to win five hundred dollars worth of free groceries if you fill out this survey online which is basically a chance for you to recall how badly I may have screwed up while checking you out today blah blah blah!) if a survey prints out with their receipt. And you have to do all of this pretty quickly. Nobody likes a slow cashier, but nobody really likes to help bag. It's funny. I digress.

Here are a couple things I did wrong:

• I never actually took the time to recite that aforementioned statement about the survey. They don't care. It was two parts defiance, ten parts my own laziness. 
• Sometimes I accidentally asked if a customer needed help out to their car, which doesn't sound bad but we're really supposed to make it a statement, as if I actually would be happy to help you out to your car. 
• I rarely carded anybody, and whenever I didn't, I could tell that they were a little offended, and whenever I did, I could tell that they were a little confused. It was so frustrating! I just never got it right. 
• Sometimes I just simply forgot to give people change which is a stupid thing to do, but not many people paid in cash so it was a break from the normal routine. Natural. Stupid. 
• Sometimes I'd miss coupons on things and customers would complain. My bad--sorry I didn't notice the teeny tiny microscopic sticker on your rotisserie chicken. 
• Often a customer would leave a bag behind and then it would automatically become my fault and we'd have to comp them if they came back for it later. Sorry you missed your fucking avocados. 
• There were a few times, when I'd just started working, that if something didn't scan, I'd just kinda give it to them. Which is what you're supposed to do anyway, but I'm pretty sure I've given away seventeen dollar cuts of meat before. 
• I never really got the official 411 on where things are in the godforsaken store, so when customers asked me I usually said something to the extent of "Um....try four...or maybe ten. Either one." 
• Never learned how to work U-Scan, never wanted to. 
• Did you know Harris Teeter legally can't sell alcohol before 12 on Sundays? I didn't. 

So, Harris Teeter was a weird experience, I think that that much is definitely clear. But my time spent as a lowly cashier did teach me a couple of things. First and foremost, it was my first "real" job, with tax deductions to a physical paycheck and an ugly uniform and a little name tag. I had been technically employed before this, yes, as a swim coach for my neighborhood's swim team, where I earned a significantly heftier amount of money (and arguably gained much more valuable life skills). But my dad was my boss and I knew most of the families that I worked with quite personally. So, while it definitely counts, it also doesn't. Harris Teeter was my first job with people I didn't know, in a not-so-welcoming workplace environment, with a clock I had to punch into, specific things today, an actual coalition of management, a break room, khakis, shifts, a clock that I watched desperately. Even though the fine art of cashiering isn't an exactly desirable or prestigious profession by any means, I did learn a lot. I was responsible for myself. I was responsible for my little register and all the customers who came through it. And even though I was only working for the money, that's a pretty justifiable reason to have a job as a high school junior. I paid for my own gas and most other things. I did a lot of thinking at work, grappled with a lot of big decisions and personal conflicts (scanning items gets pretty monotonous). There were rare (and beautiful) occasions when I did actually connect with customers. Whenever anybody bought everything bagels or cajun crab dip, I was always quick to express my love for such items. Some people were very kind. Others just didn't care, and I don't really blame them. One story that sticks out is this younger guy that bought ground elk meat on a Sunday night. I didn't even know we sold ground elk meat. When I mentioned this, he responded with the same sort of genuine wonderment, admitting that he had never tried elk meat and was buying it on a complete whim. We had a good laugh. I hope one day to be that spontaneous, to someday be content enough with life that when I stumble upon ground elk meat in the grocery store I'll go "hm, why ever not?" 

Although I have plenty of anecdotal evidence and physical artifacts of my time at the good ol' Teeter, my favorite relic are the two poems I was able to write as a commentary on the things I saw as a cashier. I titled them both "An Ode to Register Nine" (parts one and two, respectively), in regards to the actual register nine at the Stone Creek location Harris Teeter, which is almost never in use unless the store is exceptionally (and I mean, like, apocalyptically) busy. Part One has been pasted below. Part Two will come to you later.

AN ODE TO REGISTER NINE

people don’t buy each other enough flowers.

there are plenty of loaves of bread and

cases of beer; bananas, potato chips,

cat food, Coca-Cola.

but the floral department suffers

under the weight of our collective

predispositions.

most faces are blurs—

mere smudges on the proverbial clock

that counts down until closing time.

there’s a shrunken old man with a half empty cart

and a hand full of coupons

and a tall, smart-looking woman

who’s perfume temporarily cloaks the stench of produce

and forces the reality that

yes, there is life beyond the cold gray register,

believe it or not.

it’s true—

most people blend into the harsh fluorescents,

but some do stick out;

they leave a bad taste on the tongue,

or a smile ghosting the lips,

and it could be something small,

like the flair of their signature

or the bags under their eyes,

but, for some reason,

these people exhibit some idiosyncratic resonance

that could smell like sour milk

or taste like fresh coffee.

for example:

a man comes through the line,

sad eyes and a wrinkled shirt,

and in a hushed tone,

he speaks to his son

about visiting mom in the hospital that evening.

he jumps when his phone rings.

and his son looks so lost

even though he hasn’t let go of his father’s hand.

the man doesn’t need a bag for the bouquet of flowers.

they’re the third bunch he’s bought this week.

in another line,

a woman drops a tray of Asian food

and rice explodes across the floor like confetti.

she lets out a string of unholy words

and life goes on.

all so cyclical.

the man says thank you and leaves

his son at his side,

a little bit like an anchor,

a little bit like a ball and chain.

to stay sane,

one might try imagining lives for each individual grocery.

a pop-tart, grabbed on the way to school,

a bottle of wine,

sneakily procured from the refrigerator and shared on a roof,

a thank you card filled with false words.

or else one might succumb to the easier thoughts:

like, I know that it’s my  job and all

but why aren’t you helping me bag your three hundred dollar order

when there is a line four people deep behind you,

able-bodied sir?

but thanks for shopping with us and have a great evening.

across the store,

a girl pulls a boy close in the cleaning supplies aisle

and kisses him with purpose and lingering desperation—

she was smart enough to know that

separation based on rate of movement wasn’t limited to existence

in chemical solutions

and that if she let him drive home,

he’d go too fast.

he’d skid.

he’d crash.

for every “thank you”

there’s an accompanying

“I’m sorry”

trailing behind.

after a while

you begin to learn the circadian rhythm

of this corporate giant.

Saturdays and Sundays

are for families and roommates—

snarky remarks, shoulders squeezed, paper bags.

Monday through Thursday

are for the weathered pros,

zipping through aisles with unbridled efficiency.

keys jangle and phone voices carry.

Friday nights are for the lonely,

the tired,

falling apart in frozen foods.

and you

you, standing so close to the cans of soup,

your head almost in your hands,

because you saw that girl with the Band-Aids up her arms

scan that woman’s boxes of cereal,

and that man with his young daughter whizzed right past you

with the assuredness of somebody

who knows the aisles as well as he know the spattering of freckles

on his daughter’s smiling face

because he can’t bring himself to tell her that mom’s

never coming back.

and you just can’t stop noticing everybody else’s pain

and that’s enough to make you dissolve into tears

in the canned foods aisle.

but you also can’t stop seeing the beauty

in everything but yourself

and that’s enough to make you lose your mind.

you were a traffic light lover—

the parking lot was too safe for you

but the city avenues

made you sick

and the plastic bags in your hands

made you sicker.

so you quietly hope you’ll

bleed to death in a public restroom

or fall off of a balcony,

somewhere,

and land, mangled and at peace,

amongst tailored flower beds.

for now, however,

you lay beside the silence a thousand times

and you dry your eyes on jacket sleeves

and waxy receipt paper;

you pretend that it’s okay that inside

you’re waging a war against some asshole with

absolutely no sense of urgency.

you frequent the grocery store,

maybe because of the familiarity,

or because of the conformity,

but, for some reason,

the linearity of it all

always made you feel much better.

until tonight

when you caught sight of your reflection in the deli display

and only saw a ghost.

then everything suddenly sucked again

and you sought solace

among the New England clam chowders

and lobster bisques.

you leave abruptly

you pass the desolate floral department, the bakery,

the stacks of baskets.

later, a streetlamp laughs at you

as you pass, much too fast.

and you can’t stop thinking about anything else.

and it’s beautiful and it’s sad

and you hate yourself and you can’t explain why.

THE PARALIAN

The paralian sighs/
before cleaning his hands in a tide pool.

He speaks of bloodless wars and how those are often the hardest to win./
says he was much too far down the path of life/
before he realized that his manifest destiny didn't exist anywhere coast to coast./
says for too long he watched traffic lights change colors and let the red glow/
affect his mood.

He turns to me and laughs humorlessly./
says, "it's a bloodless war."/
then he looks away, out at the gray horizon,/
and says nothing./
I can't tell if he's at peace now/
or if the seaboard has just made him completely insane.

I walk away,
brushing the sand from my thighs/
and I wander into thoughts of foggy afternoons/
spent with you in a sleepy stupor./
I allow those grains of sand to fall through the cracks,/
immortalizing the moment/
in a snow globe-like casing.

I know I shouldn't stow such precious things on shelves/
but it's too risky to trust the fragility of memory.

I decide I don't like the sad man standing at the seaside./
it is clear to me that he didn't allow himself/
to enjoy enough of the messy, beautiful parts of life,/
like variegated skies, split open like scabs,/
or passionate scramblings over center consoles,/
and he reminds me of what I could have been/
had I not somehow triumphed in my own bloodless war.

There was something flimsy about existence/
that has since solidified./
It was gossamer-thin and terrifyingly out of reach for so long,/
unlike the palpable words that are now so heavy and opaque/
that they hang from wires in midair/
and light up as I pass,/
polychromatic and neon.

I hope the sad seaman can see words in real life too and not just on pages,/
I think, fleetingly, as I quicken my pace./
Then I decide that it doesn't matter./
I kick a stone the rest of the way home/
and imagine kicking it all the way to you,/
where you'd stop it under your foot and grin.

I leave the man behind.

The sky becomes bluer with every step.

I walk through a gate framed by yellow rose bushes./
I take a deep breath and exhale./
I can no longer smell the fetid shore;/
from here on out it is strictly smooth sailing.

I look up at the variegated sky./
It splits open like two French doors.

Like a scab.

TITANIC

one of the more disconsolate details of history,
in my opinion,
is the fact that a band was playing
and fireworks were going off
as the Titanic sunk.

and I believe that the fact that
the band kept playing
until, literally, the very end,
is one of the most heroic things
that anybody has ever done.

I guess it is just another example
of the miracle of human nature
and how we are taught
to always force a smile
even when well-aware that we are
truly, royally
fucked.
and it's sad how
it has always been so easy for us
to mistake calamities
for mere trivialities.

apparently,
disillusion is supposed to
trump terror every time,
and, in many cases, this is so.
ignorance is, after all, bliss.

because nobody told anybody
that if you were
lower-class, middle-aged, and male,
you were the most fucked of all.
the scariest part was that
you had to find out on your own,
when it was already way too late.
because the water was freezing
but it looked so damn beautiful
under the failing lights of the ship
and all those stars.

I know how easy it is
to feel like you're sinking sometimes
in crowded hallways and loud restaurants--
bathrooms at parties and
the rooftops of apartment buildings.
your own room, maybe.
but I want you to know
that the way I feel about you is colossal--
titanic, even, one might say.
and if you ever
feel yourself slipping again,
downwards into that
familiar icy black water,
I'll send the whole fucking coast guard
and then some
to pull you back to the surface
and all the way to shore
where I will hold you and never let go.