Professor

“She’s so intelligent,” she says.

“That’s why she’s teaching at Harvard.”

The words of a small professor from a small college

who leaks out loathing as a bird

leaks out feathers:

in the fluttering.

One by one the moments of hate

drip down upon her open pupils.

The splash makes them all wince

as she culls their vision.

It is so blinding

when she can’t figure out her

own location. It is

utterly weird.

Shrek and his Freudian implications

I just found out that DreamWorks is an exceedingly Freudian term. I feel like an idiot and I'm suddenly desirous to re-watch Antz.

Steeple

I see the name of reason being taken out into the streets and beaten to a pulp with quasi-political rhetoric bullshit.

Look.

There it is: the steeple has impaled the child.

The child might be crying, but no one knows for sure

because the steeple rages so loudly.

It has condemned every single phrase to come out of the earth, forgetting any goodness, any laughter,

any heartache.

I hope the steeple snaps in half.

May it fall in such discord

that if it ever again rises it will be

unrecognizable.

The Sensation of Self-Loathing

I think I've gained some insight into the life of the poet.

They're often stereotyped as being morose, depressed, lifeless, and altogether unenjoyable company. Some say this is because of the heavy weight of genius; if a woman sees the world in a way unique from all other women, that distinctive perception becomes a burden to her soul. It prevents her from bonding with other humans. Others will say it's because melancholic individuals tend to foster more poetic personalities. This too can make sense if you believe that poets notice the numerous, painful particularities of life that allow them to characterize this world so poignantly.

I, however, believe it's something altogether different that gives poets their macabre appearance: writing your own poetry is the surest way known to human kind to breed self-loathing. Try it some day when you're feeling really great about yourself. If you write a poem, you will be painfully aware the entire time of what an atrociously self-absorbed person you are. As you write you'll ponder to yourself, "Wow, this is really deep. I'm kind of enjoying this. I want to show everyone I know." But every self-indulgent thought will be laced with the knowledge that what you've written is probably drivel and if you show someone, you're more than likely to cry of embarrassment.

This is why poets are depressed: No one in this world is more painfully aware that their world revolves interminably around themselves.

Why Kathy Bates Shouldn't Have Plastic Surgery

I wrote this on my way home from California:

This is my first entry from an airplane. It’s a small one--the plane, that is--and I’ve never felt more trapped. I’ll illustrate with a description I’ve used of another oppressive person: The attendant on this particular flight gives one the feeling of being in an elevator already uncomfortably full of people that stops to take on yet another passenger. This new passenger is huge, sweaty, loud, and dull. There’s nothing you can do to escape him: he has completely invaded your personal space, and you, pressed up against the wall are helpless. This particular flight attendant has lectured, given advice, yelled, reprimanded, laughed maniacally, banged airplane equipment against the wall, and bragged of her own education all in the first half hour. I stand in complete awe to her shameless disregard for normal social conventions. She has jettisoned them all in favor of a Misery-meets-Joan Lunden persona. I, naturally, am terrified.

The best part is, she picked on Courtney Edmonds, my debate partner and the team captain. Of all the people on this plane to pick on, Courtney is probably the last. We’re all one school, with one big funding source and a crew of lawyers already on a leash. Not to mention, she tried to argue with Courtney... and we’re a freaking debate team. Obviously we didn’t argue back at the moment--we are after all reasonable individuals who realize when the power structure does not favor us--but the palpable awareness that this poor woman, Jody, was making a fool of herself held us all in rapt attention.

I absolutely had to write this down. May its memory live forever.

The Drafting Process

It is now 2:22 A.M. on February the 24th. I have a five to six page draft due at 8:30 in the morning. There, I and a group of peers will exchange papers and do a bit of friendly peer editing (as one might expect in such a group).

It is now that I realize how painful the process of writing truly can be. My brain is still happily awake (thank you Starbucks doubleshot) but everything that is at all concerned about my health tells me to go to sleep. Yet, I press onward.

Dr. Wilfong, this is for you, and only you. Any other professor would find it nigh impossible to draw this type of effort out of my being. May you find it to your satisfaction.

The first draft.

The Hour Grows Late...

Let us experiment and thereby ascertain whether blogger.com lends itself to smaller levels of narcissim than facebook, or no.

My guess is with the latter.