Suspended in a Sunbeam (a poem)

(This is the final piece I wrote for my high school's online literary magazine, The Inkblot, in my Honors Creative Writing II class. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in this class and had the opportunity to challenge myself to write about things I wouldn't normally write about and approach my ideas from all kinds of different perspectives. The theme for our final issue of the semester was "space", and I chose to write a poem about the Voyager missions launched by NASA in 1977. NASA sent two probes into space, each carrying a golden record with sounds and songs selected by Carl Sagan along with 116 images of life on Earth. I hoped for the piece to be a poetic exploration of this small attempt to sum up human existence and the necessity that we feel to communicate that existence with extraterrestrial life. So, here it is, the last creative piece I will ever write at Green Hope High School.)


The dictionary defines a voyage

as a long trip to a faraway land,

and a voyager

as the one who embarks, who travels,

who wanders.

Historically, an explorer.

One who navigates the unknown.

An adventurer.

In 1977

NASA sent the Voyager I and II probes

into space.

Because they would be the first spacecrafts

to travel beyond our Solar System,

a panel of scientists composed golden records carrying

messages for potential extraterrestrial life.

The records are a time capsule

of human existence,

and include photos of canyons,

skyscrapers, Olympic sprinters,

cells, diagrams of the makeup of Earth.

Songs representing different styles of music

and greetings in fifty-five languages.

The records will likely outlast all of human life

and possibly even the Blue Planet itself.

They will remain, navigating the great cosmic ocean

for millions of years.

I wonder if one can really be a voyager if

their destination is unknown.

It’s hard not to feel extremely small

thinking about those spacecrafts, hurtling through

the final frontier

at 35,000 miles a second.

We’re trying to talk to aliens but we haven’t

even finished charting our own oceans.

I looked up at the sky last night

when I took my dog out

and thought

about those records and the

fruitlessness of this existence--

my life, a microscopic blip on this

great blinking timeline.

There are potentially

134 habitable planets within thirty four

light years of us, but it takes

the Voyager crafts 17,000 years

to travel just

one single light year.

I find this extremely frustrating.

It will be 40,000 years before the crafts get anywhere

near another star other than our Sun

and I’ll be gone and everyone I’ve ever known and loved

will be gone and there might have been wars

and there might have been love and happiness

and new things that none of us right now could even imagine,

and maybe aliens will find those records and Earth will look

absolutely nothing like what it does in those 116 humble images.

All those airports and busy highways,

mountain climbers, cotton harvests.

Little university towns, computers.

Superficial wounds on our fresh-faced planet.

So here I am, driving in my car,

singing along to good music and here

I am going to the movies and going to concerts

and here I am worrying about college and my friends

and the rest of my tiny life and there are probably

other life forms out there and we’re probably not

alone and everything I am doing will never be

anywhere close to significant.

As of this moment, Voyager I is 20,073,807,603 KM from Earth

and I’m thinking about what cereal I want to

have for breakfast tomorrow morning.

I guess it’s hard not to feel like

a waste of time and space when you

know you’d never make it on a golden record.

I’m writing hasty poems in class

and learning about United States government and we’re

trying to communicate with aliens who are

too far away

for me to even fathom.

Those records,

that small attempt to sum up

human existence,

that sad little encapsulation of everything we hold near and dear

to our mortal hearts,

pays tribute to our need, our desperation to

communicate everything with others.

“Tell me about your day.”

“How are you feeling?”

“I want to hear all about it.”

“I love you.”

“Let me know how it goes.”

Most are familiar with Pale Blue Dot,

the image of Earth that the Voyager sent back to us

before exiting our Solar System

forever.

There we are, a tiny little smudge,

a nearly indistinguishable blob of pixelated blue

suspended in a sunbeam.

That’s home. That’s you and me

and everything else and seven billion

other people and all of our mostly

uncharted oceans and every single blade of grass.

None of us know what will happen next,

but we sent spacecrafts outside of our

Solar System,

outside of the heliosphere,

outside of anything we’ve ever known

just for the chance to say

“Greetings

to our friends in the stars.

We wish that we will meet you someday.”

All along I knew Earth was a romantic.

Election Year (a poem)

I realize I am always measuring my life in some
nostalgic version of 

“this time last year." 

Saving chopstick wrappers 

and cards and pictures on my phone.

Trying to hold onto everything 

while I still can,

trying to salvage the unsalvagable.

Believing this moment is more 

than just simply a moment.

Thinking about all the 

cool and profound things I want to do

but never getting around to them.

They don’t make memories like this
anymore.

This will be a good month.

And this will be a good life.

May came with a blue-gray streak of 

storm threatening the tree-line,

announcing its arrival with the 

roll of thunder, darkening suburbia.

There’s something that’s always 

been bittersweet to me about this time of year.

Friends leaving, friends coming home,

Mother’s Day, flowers, 

something sleepy and fleeting.

Prom, parties, 

everything, futures, wide and bright.

May breeds a place, a time for roots, a dark dampened ground.

Looking out the window I thought about how the trees 

outside my Gov classroom have 

been there for the past

four years, too,

but unlike me, they’ll never leave.

A kind of grounded impermanence, 

a kind of stationary necessity.

We’ve been working so hard

for the day that 

we’ll get out of this place since

the day that we arrived

without noticing the trees 

or the coffee smell of the hallways.

A post-grad curse. 

Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.

Maybe I’m wrong and 

you’re not all as sentimental as I am.

Soon the tassels will turn.

We’ll move on.

This won’t matter so much.

I know it’s supposed to be a happy ending,

but is any ending every really happy?

I’ll probably miss

this the suburban safe haven
where fights don’t break out on metros 

and there’s no symbolic city grime

or museums full of weirdos 

and the distance between me and home 

is only a couple of

tiny miles.

And I know I have to get out of this town,

but part of me--

the wimpy part--

wants everything to last forever.

But there’s the necessity to leave 

this little comfort zone.

To feel nothing during the metro fight 

and to walk through museums 

with people I hardly know.

Because I made it. We made it.

Of course,

like any ending, there are

friends I made too late,

people I wish I’d known longer,

things I wish had happened.

The destinations of yesterday 

lost and forgotten as

we beat on, 

seniors singing songs for tomorrow.

But we’re just so young,

there’s still so much time 

to celebrate birthdays 

and to make the world we want

out of ourselves.

At that, there’s still enough time

to tell all your friends 

that you love them

and there’s always going to be
enough time 

for one more song.

And so we hope for tomorrow

and lament the loss of 

those who won’t make it to then

and laugh our last laughs

and tell random people how in love we are 

and then forget about it the next day

and face the future with big, beating hearts

because we’re ready.

We stand here,
facing a world
of silver spoons and soap boxes,
and we're ready. 

“Stop waiting for the right time,”

I say to myself as the sky breaks open 

and the rain starts to come down in great chutes.

“It doesn’t exist.”

For now I’ll keep writing essays about everything bagels

and listening to storms passing quietly in the night.

I'll keep saving chopstick wrappers 

and feeling sentimental and I'll believe in 

my youthful invincibility,

because maybe my art won’t get me to Jupiter,

but my lust for life could get me 

pretty darn close. 

A Review of The Last Shadow Puppets' "Everything You've Come to Expect"

So far, 2016 has been a year for the books.

Leo won his Oscar. We're witnessing one of the worst presidential candidacy races in history. UNC made it to the final four.

But politics and basketball aside, we're also bearing witness to an exciting time for new music. After eight years, Arctic Monkeys' frontman, Alex Turner, and former frontman of the Rascals/solo artist Miles Kane finally churned out the long overdue second album of their collaborative side project--Everything You've Come to Expect by The Last Shadow Puppets was released on April 1st, 2016.

Is it really everything we've come to expect, however? Eight years is an extremely long time to wait for a new project from any band--however, it's not like Turner and Kane were just sitting around, twiddling their thumbs. Since the 2008 release of The Age of the Understatement, Turner has been busy with the Arctic Monkeys, releasing three full length albums (Humbug in 2010, Suck it and See in 2011, and AM in 2013), as well as touring the U.S. and Europe extensively with the band. Kane left the Rascals as a result of their break up in 2009 and pursued a solo career, releasing The Colour of the Trap in 2011 and Don't Forget Who You Are in 2013. Turner and Kane themselves, as well as many other insiders, had hinted at the possibility of a new album for what seemed like forever, and the two best friends kept up their strange bromance through many a TV interview and Instagram post while rumors of LP2 seemed to be the opposite of urgent. 2008 was an odd time for Turner to randomly produce a side project, as Arctic Monkeys fame and success was growing with the anticipation of a career-solidifying third album. But the Last Shadow Puppets were wildly successful, leaving adoring fans desperate for more. Now, after three Arctic Monkeys albums, it seems time the foursome took a break--a perfect opportunity for The Last Shadow Puppets to take to the stage once more.

The Age of the Understatement was a tough act to follow. The album is, simply put, epic--one critic said of the debut, "equal parts 007-intrigue and spaghetti western-histronics, this is music at it's most cinematic." And how does EYCTE measure up? The album is full of hyperbolic piano riffs, provocative lyrics ("Ain't got anything to lick without you baby," sings Turner on Sweet Dreams, TN), and hypnotic choruses. It's the kind of music that makes you want to run across a beach in slow motion into your lover's arms. Both Turner and Kane's formidable lyricism and musical finesse combine to create an album as groovy and smooth as its cover art--golden, sexy, and, yes, cinematic. "60's string"-esque arrangements by Owen Pallet seem to fill the room upon every listen, and Turner's nuanced lyrics evoke many a suggestive image. After the sophisticated and yet relatively boring AM, EYCTE shows us how far Turner has come since his awkward, punkish teenage days when the Monkeys released their brilliant debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. Kane, too, proves his musical brilliance on this sun-soaked album as both songwriter and instrumentalist.

In conclusion, Turner and Kane, girl-crazy hopeless romantics, opt for the clean-cut glamour of big band sound while delivering vexing lyrics on the second LP of their brainchild of a music group. The Last Shadow Puppets is one of those under the radar bands that'll just make you feel cool when you listen to them.

Highlights: Miracle Aligner, Everything You've Come to Expect, The Bourne Identity

Traveling South (an essay)

Located right on the brink of the two Carolinas sits a sprawling landmark infamous to all who have journeyed southeast. A beacon of early 1950s rest stop/roadside attractions. A graveyard of tackiness with a lively Mexican-bandido mascot--a borderline graveyard in every respect.

Every trek down Interstate 95 has taken my family past this notorious place, and its image stains every storybook road trip we’ve taken to Hilton Head, South Carolina, for as long as I can remember. Those familiar with South of the Border know that it is quite the monument, and it’s a bit of a joke amongst Carolinians both north and south of this strangely out of place mini-metropolis. My family and I have never stopped inside (which is probably a good thing), but we’ve definitely considered doing so, just “for the experience”--a South of the Border bumper sticker was always a coveted item, and would be the ultimate proof of our bravery had we ever been adventurous enough to travel through its gigantic orange welcome sign. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to take a ride up its towering sombrero structure, the safety and integrity of which has always been questionable to me. My dad speaks wistfully of the days that he, my aunt and uncles and my grandparents would travel down to Hilton Head from New York--how the kids would beg and plead to stop at that brightly colored Mexico-themed Disneyland. I assume those were the South of the Border glory days, the days when you didn’t wonder if maybe it was a front for a drug cartel, but instead a pure and magical land complete with a motel, tiny amusement park, and souvenir shop.

Even if you’ve somehow never noticed it, you’ve probably noticed all one hundred and twenty of the billboards advertising South of the Border as you’ve gotten closer and closer. Every mile or so, there’s a brightly colored sign depicting a caricature of a poncho wearing, mustached man and his donkey friend, urging you with blank, painted on eyes to visit the ailing roadside tourist trap. I’ve always felt bad for the place, and it’s a miracle to me that it stays in business. In all my eighteen years of passing that barren wasteland of neon scaffolding and variegated buildings, I’ve never seen a single soul even filling up their car with South of the Border gas. It’s always been cold, distant, and sad, sticking out like a sore thumb in a sea of highway forest, the fading yellow of its heroic sombrero a lonely still life against a Carolina blue sky.

We once drove past at night, and this time it came as a total surprise--the darkness had swallowed each and every apprising billboard. It was lit up like Christmas time, its colored bulbs framed by the inky night. I felt very old looking at this image of neglect, shining proudly off the side of the interstate. It was a lively ghost, a dim and yet formidable shell of itself in its heyday, a phantom tourist trap existing in the in between--unable to choose life or the hellish locale where dated places go to die. With my forehead pressed to the car window, I watched it fade backwards as we passed, a small blob of colorful light on an endless timeline.

30 Things I Learned While I Was in High School (a list)

1. Nothing's ever easy.

2. The hardest thing to realize about love is that there's never enough of it.

3. People want to be good.

4. It's impossible to divide your time evenly between a million different things. Learning the principles of time management is one of the most important parts of growing up. A lot of us juggled high school with jobs, sports, school plays, time with family, relationships, and volunteer work. We learned how to prioritize and how to find the right balance. These lessons will prove to be the most valuable to us when we're in college as well as later on in life. But I learned that the most important thing to remember when it comes to managing your time is that you can't do it all.

5. Try your hardest to do the right thing, even if the right thing isn't popular.

6. ...But it's important to keep in mind that one mistake isn't going to define you for the rest of your life. We're young. We'll make mistakes.

7. Sometimes, short stories have no underlying meaning. Sometimes, the stories are just short.

8. There will be times when the customer is definitely wrong--there's just nothing you can do about it.

9. Crunchy peanut butter is better.

10. If you want to be friends with somebody, you usually have to work pretty hard for it. It's not always as simple as just having a class together and favoriting each other's tweets. In fact, if you want anything bad, you gotta fight for it.

11. Being nice pays off.

12. Food solves a lot of things.

13. Sometimes you may be the only one who's right, even if nobody else agrees with you. Trust yourself. Stick to your guns.

14. Conversation isn't the only way to connect. It can be nice to not talk.

15. It's okay to do things alone and to want to do things alone. See a movie, read a book, or take a walk. It's equally as important to get to know yourself as it is to get to know other people.

16. Always disable text preview.

17. The simplest and often times the best thing that you can do for others is display genuine gratitude. Always take the time to thank people--teachers who wrote recommendation letters, friends who did a favor, co-workers who picked up shifts. It'll make you feel better at the end of the day.

18. Speaking of feeling better at the end of the day, never underestimate the healing properties of a hot shower and a good night's sleep. Laughter is also the best medicine--that is a cliche that is also true. I recommend Demetri Martin's stand-up routine on Netflix, or any YouTube compilation of the funniest New Girl moments. Phone a friend. Buy yourself an ice cream. You won't regret it.

19. The scariest moment is always just before you start.

20. Fighting fire with fire can be surprisingly effective.

21. Education isn't a gun held to your head--it's a weapon in your hands.

22. Sometimes all you can say is "yikes" and move on.

23. There's such a thing as a healthy amount of procrastination. I've found that if I try to accomplish something all at once, the result is much less gratifying. Sometimes it's necessary to let things sit for a while, to return with an open-mind later on. You don't have to fix everything right now.

24. Life isn't a support system for art--it's the other way around.

25. Reading for pleasure is cool. So is making mix CDs.

26. Rooting for the villain is useless.

27. "The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you'll let things upset you." -Lost In Translation (filed under Quotations That Turned Out to be Applicable)

28. If you're excited about something, you have to work at it.

29. More good days will come.

30.A year is much shorter than it sounds.

Dear Admissions Counselor (a poem)

Dear admissions counselor,

I’ve made a lot of promises to you.

I’m sure you’ve read about them.

My aspirations outlined in my essays;

my resume and transcript, telling indicators of my potentially bright future.

I’d like to thank you for your time and consideration.

I’m sure you’ve seen far too many essays and applications in your day,

some ridiculously good, some frighteningly bad,

and while I found mine to be relatively strong when I fared them well and pressed submit,

they may have lost their zeal by the time they reached your hands after a long day

of dissecting students' lives.

The truth is, I really know nothing about you, admissions counselor,

but you know quite a lot about me--

my job history, how many A’s I’ve gotten, what my teachers have to say about me, if anything.

I’m sure you have a family--

a wife or a husband and perhaps some kids of your own.

Maybe they’re in college right now, or already navigating the ghost town of adulthood,

but then again, they may not have even begun this process yet,

maybe they're still in diapers or starting middle school,

and you’re just waiting anxiously

for the day when somebody exactly like you

is scrutinizing your daughter’s essays and frowning contemplatively

while they mull over her grades and test scores.

I can’t be certain, but I’d imagine that it’s not very hard for you

to only let your applicants exist as words on paper, because, let’s face it,

it’s easier that way.

You probably want to get home to your family and maybe your dog

after a long day of checking yeses and nos, 

of stuffing envelopes with rejection letters or car decals, 

admissions counselor.

I don’t mean to waste your time, and I’m not trying to beg

for an acceptance--I like to think that I’m above that, 

but if you read my essays again, there’s probably a note of desperation in between 

each of the meticulously placed words.

Can you really blame me?

I only wanted to introduce myself a little more accurately--

sure, it’s drilled into your mind that whatever’s in that file

with my name on it is the ultimate assessment of

how I’d do at your school,

and I’m not questioning your judgment, admissions counselor,

because I trust that you’re pretty damn good at your job.

But, you see, it would have been distasteful for me to use the word “damn”

on my application and sometimes I curse like a sailor,

especially during an episode of road rage and

I like to eat plain bagels with butter and honey

and sometimes I dance in the shower when I’m in a good mood

and sometimes I spend money on things I don’t need

like DVDs or Star Wars Band-Aids.

See, none of that was deemed relevant

when I took the fictional seminar on How to Apply to College.

The point, admissions counselor, is that I wanted to be more honest with you,

because some nights I skipped studying for a test

and I probably could’ve reviewed more for the SAT

and there were a few instances that I even went to concerts instead of

doing my APUSH homework and I’ve even ditched school

once or twice because I “wasn’t feeling well”.

I’m sure you’ve guessed at stuff like that.

I mean, no high school student

could maintain a 5.0, fall in love, see all the Oscar-nominated movies,

and save the world without their head exploding, right?

I did some of those things,

and I did those few things all at once without suffering a mental breakdown.

I think that's pretty impressive.

You hold all the cards, admissions counselor.

You’re changing lives,

you’re running this whole show, and I should really be

bowing at your feet.

You have my answer, and you’ve probably had it

for many months now

and I’m really scared and I don’t know when I’ll hear from you next,

but when I do, that’s when I start planning my next move

(literally and figuratively).

Because this fall

I could be at your university

or I could be at any of the others that have already sent me

happy letters and car decals and student store coupons and

skies full of congratulations.

They want me bad, admissions counselor,

but I’m still waiting for you.

You know me.

You know that I'm a pretty smart kid and you know that I want to study journalism 

and you know that I’m the oldest of three siblings.

Hell, you even know where I live.

But I’m asking you now to remember how much power you have.

To take a break from playing collegiate God and

recall what it was like when you mailed off your application materials

with your fingers crossed in vain.

I’m asking for you to remember who I am

when I write a book or end world hunger

or beg you for change on the street

and realize that the degree hanging on my wall at home

will, in some small and yet eternally significant way,

be because of you.