(The following poem was written in my brother’s basement while I was applying to graduate schools. I am not sure if I submitted this piece with my applications, but if I did, it is because it is a Shakespearean Sonnet (a style of poem popularized by Billy Shakespeare).

Sixteen years ago this day, I embarked on an evening journey – 

A passive suicide. Stated more accurately: my daily dose 

Hiatus turned helicopter ride over the Great Smoky

Mountains. And this momentary-death rendered me comatose: 

Lock tight brain, dirty kidneys – and an opportune time 

For narcissistic supply. The day opened in Boone, NC

With an ex-con called Russ and closed with my good eye

In kaleidoscopic wandering. I desperately tried to align

My waning theta state to reality, untethered silken

Stands from my Soul’s near-fatality: a gossamer whisper 

Across an undulating aether – a brush stroke whir from Van 

Gogh’s The Starry Night. Years passed before I could decipher

What those romanticized obsessions were really all about;

There’s no regret in learning lessons, as long as you find out.