Reader beware:

Every once and a while, I write something so intensely emotional and realistic that I'm afraid to show it to anyone... I'm afraid for others to see the wild chaos of my brain... the pretentiousness, the inferiority, the gross thoughts and observations. but, I have already revealed myself in an earlier post, so here goes. This is a mess of pretentious horse-chatter that I wrote out of frustration with my current situation. I have no idea where my life is going. I spend most of my days in anxiety for the future... reconsidering my past, wondering if I have made some celestial mistake somewhere. in this little piece, I claim to have found the mistake... it's vulgar, pretentious, and kind of scary.


Here goes...

I feel like my life is going nowhere. I feel like I had this moment of prime beauty and intellect, and I squandered it. Squandered it with careless glee. Let it drift away like meaningless bits of newspaper. And now I’m trying to pick them up again--to put it all back together… but it’s nearly impossible. I could maybe reassemble the headlines, at best…
And there I was, in all the glory of my junior and senior years. I had a rigorous “well-rounded” schedule. I studied music in the afternoon, and calculus and physics in the morning.
I became a machine in the name of standardized testing. I went manic with the ACT scores of my peers… she got a 28... He got a 24, how pathetic!… she got a 34; dear God, she is brilliant. I could never do that!… and he got a 30. A very respectable score. I could have accurately reported the score of any given person walking down the hallway. And then testing season came around. And I prepared by playing guitar and writing songs in my room, studying test prep books before sleep. And yes, yes, yes, there I was! The brilliant senior! I got fours and fives on all my AP exams! I understood calculus. It understood me. We were one soul. I made art late in the day… pots and pans, scrapbooks, drawings. The freshman were in awe of my work. I took up piano again. I went to state for my solo--Claire de Lune. I began songwriting more and more. I impressed the student body with my singing voice. Yes, yes, yes! The prodigy child! In extreme mania, I was finally embodying him!! And those moments of hideous fear and inferiority, well, we need not remember them. Because from a distance, these moments all sound so sublimely beautiful. And you really would think I was so incredibly brilliant then… standing on stage, being congratulated on my class ranking… number six, oh yes, me. Number six…

And I was supposed to be applying to all the wonderful universities in this country. But I applied to only one--UW-Madison, whose giant arms embraced me within weeks of applying. I found no need to apply elsewhere: this was it, this was it. The supernova of the UW system. The “flagship” of the UW system… with its giant research institutions and thousands of brilliant students and its “selectivity,” it was the place for me. All those brilliant shining faces… and we would all just work together under the sun… under the sun and the moon on Bascom Hill, showing our brilliance to the world. Yes, yes, yes! This was it! This was it!!

And I never thought to apply to any of the Ivy League schools. I thought it pointless. I analogized it with the idea of purchasing expensive, brand-name foods. I was convinced that the off-brands would taste just the same. Yes, oh yes, how sure I was! Those stupid, high-falutin’ ninnies! They knew nothing more about art or intellect than I! I was brilliant! I was brilliant, and I didn’t even think of them!

Only now do I seriously consider them. Now, when I am doomed. When I am trapped inside this stupid state with stupid people who don’t care. Trapped with stupid tools with backwards hats and faux-diamond stud earrings. With stupid orange sluts whose stupidity is exceeded only by their alcohol consumption. Yes, here I am. Trapped in the “four-year bacchanal” when I should be off with genius professors studying the classics… studying Latin and Greek, philosophizing, experimenting, thinking. Yes, I have wasted myself. I have wasted my talent. I was too engrossed in becoming a well-rounded student. I was too engrossed in myself to think about my future. And here I am. I pay the full price. I can be nothing more than a mediocre piece of scum now.
I have a 3.625 GPA from Madison, and a bunch of Humanties/Arts classes in progress here at the lovely University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I have nothing to show for my work in high school. No one cares anymore. No one cares about the musicals, the rehearsals, the drawings, the calculus tests, the Latin translations, the piano-playing, the perfect 4.0, the class ranking. No one! No one! It’s all bullshit now. It may as well not have even happened. I cannot transfer to an exceptional university at this point.
“We accept 18 to 35 transfers out of 800 applicants.” Ha! Ha Ha Ha Ha! What a fucking joke! And they want a 3.8 college GPA as well. Ha! What a joke! I’m not going to have that. Even if I ace all these stupid, unchallenging classes at Milwaukee! And even if I did, they won’t care! I took one difficult course in my college career--Chemistry, and I only got a B. They don’t care about that!
I’m trapped. I’m trapped. I’m trapped. I had it all and I wasted it. I had it all and I just threw it in the garbage. It’s timing. It’s all timing. Life is all about timing. Success is all about timing. Oh, if only I’d realized this earlier.

Or, perhaps, I was never as brilliant as I had imagined in the first place…

What becomes of me? Will I really amount to precious little more than mediocre scum?

These classes are not challenging. They just make me sleep. All I do is sleep now. I have no reason to be awake, aside from my own personal scholarship and learning… for which I am only occasionally active.
I am trapped! I am trapped!

Oh you fucking douche bag with sagging pants! No one cares about your faux-diamond stud earrings! No one cares about the orange girl you fucked last night! No one cares about how you snuck past the monitors “totally wasted as fuck” last night!
Why are you here? A hundred years ago, your kind would not be anywhere near a university. You would be despicable tavern scum. Which is, I think, what you still are. Unfortunately now, you must bear the same title as me (what a disgrace to my accomplishments and my abilities!): undergraduate. Yes. We’re all undergraduates together. The orange girls and the douche bag boys and the indifferent sluts. Yes, we’re all undergraduates. And they don’t give a shit’s worth about literature or knowledge or philosophy or Shakespeare or Plato or anything even REMOTELY intelligent. So long as they’ve got some beer and some stupid easy slut to take home at night! What a fucking joke! This whole institution is a joke! How can anyone take themselves seriously here! This is the most tragic of comedies! And I, the principal actor! Oh, the irony! Fuck this, fuck this all! I just want to run away from everything, because I have messed up so celestially… messed up so celestially that there is no hope for redemption… none….