Wicked Satisfaction

I desire destruction.
to see buildings and mountains crumble before me
to see societies fall
people turn on one another
a frenzy of chaos
I sit back and laugh.
entertained by the failures of human kind
entertained by my own apathy
no salvation comes
everything will perish
I eke hatred from every pore.
filling my aura with ire
filling my footsteps with devastation
the world ceases rotation
falls out of orbit
I gaze with dead eyes upon the wretched.
watching darkness obscure light
watching havoc replace hope
it was only a matter of time
before it ended like this
I at the center
radiating with fury
responsible for all
content as such.

World domination hangs in the balance (of a cow outfit).

I can't decide whether or not to give the context for this story. For now, I choose no. If utter chaos results, I'll fill in the blanks. Ahem....

The other night I was walking along the edge of the rainforest-ish, heading back to campus. Upon hearing significant movement and whispering voices in the foliage, I paused. Research and studying were calling my name, but my curiosity is infamously insatiable. Abandoning all hope of going to bed early, I set down my backpack and water bottle, stowing them underneath the nearest leafy shrub. Stealthily, I stepped off the path and into the trees.

Without making any noise, I made my way through the underbrush, sticking to the shadows and pausing behind trees to make sure my steps hadn’t been detected. The moonlight shone through breaks in the canopy, casting a mysterious light on my surroundings. After a few more silent steps, I spotted a clearing up ahead. The voices were clearer now, but I still couldn’t make out the words being spoken. I could also see figures, but I was too far away to identify the shapes. Making nary a sound, I proceeded toward the congregating bodies. I spotted a large hedge-type thing just outside of the clearing: the perfect hiding place.

Hardly breathing, I inched my way over to the foliage and crouched down (absently I hoped that my shrub wasn’t anything poisonous). It was the perfect vantage point and as I gazed out at the clearing, the figures suddenly came into full view. In front of me was a semicircle of farm animals. About thirty cows, pigs, and chickens were gathered together. I did a double take (especially considering that cows, chickens, and pigs are a rarity on Oahu) as one cow meandered its way to the center of the clearing, clearly the leader of the group. He began to speak.

“My friends: bovine, swine, and fowl alike. Tonight I bring you together for a meeting of the most valorous intentions. The time has come to move into the next phase of our plan. Phase three: the siege.” A twitchy chicken interrupted the cow. “But Emerson, we already tried this! It was an epic fail, we lost so many lives on that horrible night.” The cow, Emerson as it was, turned sharply to address the chicken. “Silence, Gregor. This will be nothing like that night. The faults have been addressed, the plan re-worked entirely. The siege will not fail. The siege MUST not fail.” There was a murmur of approval throughout the crowd. The creatures began discussing the details of their master plan. It involved heavy artillery and intense battle formations that no military could possibly fathom.

Throughout the discussion, I couldn’t help but wonder how these animals would accomplish such a task without opposable thumbs (it seemed like a deal-breaker to me). I remained hidden for the duration of the meeting. At the end, Emerson announced the time and date of their final pre-Siege gathering. As the animals dispersed and I made my way back to my hidden backpack, I saw myself presented with a dilemma. Try to stop this force of farm animals from taking over the world (or at least Hawaii), or succumb to a life of servitude under those we once devoured. I now find myself with no choice, the date of their final meeting approaches fast. I must do something. I need a costume.

Not exactly productive, but it's a start.

I'm writing a research paper on Organic Farming. Unfortunately, I suck at research. Today I went to the reference floor of the library in order to try my hand at subject encyclopedias, etc. I sat down at an empty table and took out all of my stuff. I looked around, sizing up the students around me (I was definitely the only freshman in the library) and surveying the rows upon of rows of enormous books.

Intimidated beyond belief, I did what only I would do in that situation: I wrote haikus.

Organic farming
the topic of my paper
research calls to me

here I find myself
mysterious library
where do I begin

I miss Joey Stych
my best friend in the whole world
Minnesota love

Not my best work, but it pseudo-got me over my paralyzing fear of the library. Next time I'm just going to ask the librarian for help.

This was an assignment.

Erato + Euterpe + Melpomene + Thalia = Inspiration

Ever since I learned to read, I wanted to write. I can probably chalk this up to the fact that I learned to read aided by the comic strip “Calvin and Hobbes” by Bill Watterson (I believe this is also the most prominent attributing factor to my ridiculous vocabulary and my slightly philosophical approach to the world at large). Most children go through a few phases of “dream jobs” over the course of their youth and adolescence. The typical favorites: astronaut, doctor, lawyer, teacher, firefighter, police officer, veterinarian. I began my cognitive life with the desire to become a writer. Although I did pass through some of these phases (I still secretly aspire to become an astronaut), my heart and soul has always belonged to the romanticized idea of writing.

I can’t pinpoint exactly why I write. As for most people, there isn’t a single motivation behind it. When I was a child, I wrote to discover myself. A rather precocious youth, my writing skills were well beyond my years (I recently found an assignment from first grade that was absurdly indicative of this). The more I wrote, the more I found out about myself. By the time I reached middle school, I had an extremely solidified sense of “self,” primarily because of the time I had spent discovering my own world through writing. From second grade on, I was known throughout my school as “the writer.” This stimulated another facet of my desire to write – entertainment. I wrote ridiculously extravagant stories, always allowing my imagination to get the better of me. In middle school, I branched into poetry. One day in eighth grade Geometry, my friend Carah sent me a note asking me what I thought “love” was. The year before, I had lost my best friend Ben to a car accident, honing my adolescent approach to the subject. In response to her question, I wrote Carah a poem and sent it back her way. Upon reading it, she began crying. It was then that I realized how much I could affect people with what I wrote. I still find myself writing to entertain, although in different ways (at this point I’m really only entertaining myself). My fallback of entertainment writing is haikus. I adore the simplicity of haikus as well as the potential to make them as abstract or poetic as you could possibly desire.

Finally, I suppose that I write (like so many others) to express myself. Whenever I have a surge of emotion, either good or bad, I write. It doesn’t really matter what I write, I just find myself with an insatiable urge to put my thoughts down. When I have an uncharacteristically good day, it goes on my blog. When I’m upset, I surrender myself to an empty piece of paper and a pen. On Tuesday of this week, my mom called me with the news that one of our close family friends had died. Sean McKay, age 28, was shot and killed outside his house by an unstable neighbor from down the street (who proceeded to flee the scene and then shoot himself). He left behind his two children, both under the age of seven, as well as his wife of ten years, Trinity. Although there is never a good time to receive news like this, it came at the worst possible time for me. This week has been the single busiest week of my entire college career, so busy that my mom said she had considered not telling me of Sean’s death. Despite the amount of work I had to do, I needed to write. I needed to vent my heartache, my fury to the only available outlet. Since I heard the news, I’ve taken time to write each day. Because of this I now find myself at 3:23 on Friday morning, shaking from the combination of combating sadness and the caffeine-induced consciousness I am currently experiencing and realizing that I still have “miles to go before I sleep” (Frost).

Writing has and always will be my most sympathetic ally. It accompanies me when I’m content, jovial, or enthused. More importantly, it stands by me when I’m disconsolate, irate, or just tired and crabby. I could not ask for a better companion in all the world.