Dr. Mr. Joe Klein,
Hi, my name is Zi Lin. I am a sophomore attending Stuyvesant High School. I’m writing to you, much like many of my fellow classmates and peers, regarding the budget cuts. I’m not writing to you to be rebellious, I’m not writing to you because I’m outraged, I’m not even writing to you because I want change, but Mr. Klein, I’m writing to you because I’m scared. I’m scared of something that I hold dear, something I’ve come to love (and hate), something that I am proud to be apart of, something that I’m willing to call my home, my family, my life is in danger. I’m scared of walking into school next September and having only eight periods of academic classes. I’m scared of walking into my club meeting only to learn that it’s been cancelled due to budget cuts. I’m scared of not having enough money for my teams to attend conferences and tournaments. I’m scared of not being able to chat to underclassmen about how fun, and how hard, an AP class is because it’s no longer being offered. I’m scared when education, something so vital and something so important, something that America holds pride in, is being tossed in the back seat in the face of fiscal and political power play.
The loneliness of just being is a strange thing.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is hardly a love song as the title suggests. In fact, J. Alfred Prufrock hardly seems the type to dwell as such a subject as romantic love, much less write a song about it. J. Alfred Prufrock, simply judging by the name, brings to mind an elderly gentlemen, perhaps someone’s grandfather, someone who is worn by the whetstone of time, perhaps a veteran of the Great War, someone a watched a generation of his friends, brothers and peers die in the war torn battlefields of Europe, someone who is weary, someone who is tired, someone who is on the inside looking out, someone who exists purely for the sake of existing, with nothing special, nothing spectacular, nothing brilliant left to shine in his life, someone neglected by the careful graces of fortune and devious hands of fate, someone completely, and most painfully, ordinary. When a man like J. Alfred Prufrock takes up the task of writing a love song, one expects something strange. An explosion of caged emotion like a dam bursting free, a torrent of his thoughts and longings, an explanation of who he is, or who he wanted to be, some sort of a confession almost. Unless one has read the poem before, just by the title alone, it’s hard to gauge what exactly Eliot’s poem is about and first stanza does nothing to help.
At this point, really I’m ready to cry. There’s one, two and three. And all of them bother the living day lights out of me. And four, but four’s a friend, a great friend, I love him, and I hope he does well in Vegas. One, one, well, I’m done and over with one. Nice kid, I’m going to miss him. Stupid kid, stupid, stupid kid (on crutches), I’m going to, actually, miss him a lot. I’m not going to be able to walk down the same hallways and not look for him. I’m going to sit in class and not think, occasionally, about where he is, what and who he’s doing or not doing, and just, and just, he’s like a really bad after taste that you can’t get rid of, but god, it was so worth it. Or not, or not. I hate everything. And two, two, two, two, two, two…I love him? Almost, sort of? Perhaps? Will find time to sort out his particular mess. Three. I feel bad. But I can’t help it. SHUT UP, STOP, I JUST MISS RICKY MEYER. Stupid kid.
I’m worried, I’m sick, I’m tired, I have the beginnings of a tiresome headache building, escalading. I’m sick and I’m tired, I’m sick and I’m tired, two different things that plague the day to day meanderings of my life. I wish it would all just go away, dissolve like sugar in tea, milk in coffee, cream and cherry pits and I wish and I wish everything would just go away.
You know, you know, you know, you know, kid it’s okay, but it’s really not. You know, I’m going to completely fucking insane in a little short while and it’d be completely his fault. By which I mean, my fault.
My fucking problem. ALL OF IT.
FUFKC FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK ALL OF IT GOD
GODDAMNIT GODDAMNIT GODDAMNIT
STOP GO AWAY
SO
He went away, you don’t have to go away ,it’s fine,it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s nso fuccking not. Omgf god, goddamnit, goddamnit, goddamn it
I hate him, I don’t even miss him, I just hate that this, I do all of this for this this guy, is this really life, lik wasting time on something SO TUPID AS YOU
K(D YOU!!
Go die somewhere I hate everything Ihate Facebookk, Ihave pictures, Ihate AIM I hate you,. You know who you are, or should by now. I hate not being able to see the Potugal Germany game, I hate hate hjate hate just being. JUST BEING SUCKS. I HATE LIVVING. LIVING FUCKING PAINFUL!!! LIKE PAINFUL
Why, I need a sedative. Omg, omg, omg, omg, stop, stop stop stop stop shut up shut up, stop stop stop fucking thinking so stop
I can’t feel my fucking arms, I cant’s top thinking about him, I can’t stop seeing in my head, does he love me OF COURSE NOT and that’s why it hruts, like, like, like, a lot
GODDAMn
Why is everything so miserable
Why do I feel like weeping
Why can’t I bring myself to do so is entirely understandable
I get everything, I get everything,
The pain is the understanding
Of course, pain, truth hurts like a motherfucker
Goddamn
And that feeling, in the pit of stomach, right before a speech round, right before I see him, right after I see him, right after I run all the lines of dialogue passed between me and him, and the fleeting moment before he walked out of my forever and ever (and damn, kid, it’ll be eternity before I actually admit to you I love you! So, shut it!), it’s just that one feeling. And I feel like dying. In the worst way possible, whatever way it happens to be.
It’s like being. Shot there. Right there. So, it hurts, a lot. And I’m done. Done, done, done, but not.
Spam with Abu, somewhere, an endless night of my love. An endless line of sight down the hall of my misery. Find me somewhere, where I am myself and no one else. And hopefully no one will ever see this little piece of me, that’s going completely off the rode of sanity, burrowing, like a rabbit down, down, down, down, down, down, down, some road not so often traveled. Kill me? Will ya? Do me a favor.
The completely unbearable-ness of being.
I MISS YOU
I FEEL LIKE CRYING
I SHOULD’VE SAID SOMETHING
The story of my life, I cry, for no apparent reason everyday, but I don’t.
He didn’t mean that much to me, I’d say. But I’m crying over a photo. I’m not, but I feel like I should. Do I even want to remember him, for crying out loud, no pun intended.
I hate being a teenager. I hate not being taken seriously. I hate my emotional discontentment, which is a direct result of my inability to loose weight and exercise. The rest of my life, they say, depends on these very ephemeral years. I think they’re lying to me. I have time to find out, but no so much. I get the angst, I get why they tell it’s a phase, I’ll pass out of it. But for the while that I’m here, for the while that I’m stuck between everything (think one of those adventure movies, where the walls with the large spikes are closing in and they’re all screaming and escape by a hair’s width from death, except, where’s the movie magic in my life) I’d like an explanation for this feeling of death in my chest. Am I looking down the barrel of life? Waiting for someone to fire a shot, waiting to wake from the dream of adolescence, like a butterfly rising from cocoon and face everything I’ve been warned about?
It’s all just my fault. You can go.
I don’t want to.
Suit yourself.
I’m staying.
You really don’t have to, you really shouldn’t.
Stay.
I’m telling you to leave.
You’re going to regret it. I won’t leave this shithole for the all the money in the world.
That’s quite egotistical right there.
Aren’t we all that way?
True that, sir, true that.
Oh, honey, honey, honey, can we just…stop? Die, perhaps, a nice, calm death. Float like Ophelia.
I just drove my car into a brick wall. For some reason, I’m not dead. Should I be happy or sad, or just mildly disappointed that nothing I do ever work? Suicide, you awful bastard, you god awful bastard, you lied to me. I’ll cyanide next time.
I want to tear my own arms off, because I feel so numb, I need something to remind that I can still feel. I want to hear flesh tear and bones break, my own, preferably. I would like that, very much, very much, indeed. I want to feel the warmth of my own blood. I’d like to feel pain, immeasurable pain, pain, just pain, so I can stop feeling this pain. So I can stop feeling this pain…
Funny thing is, I’d probably be scared shitless afterwards. And call myself a dumbass forever.
I’d really prefer anything but this right now.
Someone do something.
I need someone more than anything.