Came across this piece I wrote during my first year back in school...

 At this point of my life, I am doing everything according to the National status quo, even higher education, Jesus. I am forced to strap reins on my intellect so my professors won't know that I am smarter than them, and at this point in the game, every cell in my body is jonesing for a drink and a ticket out. Existing in the soft wet underbelly of the world is all its cracked up to be, and people and people and people tell me over and over of the horrors of being a poet, "What a sad life to lead!". I am an imposter here, an unwilling resident of the American Facade, Starbucks and Borders and Macy's all the same, all of them rats that scramble to the beat of the death of the American dream. Nine years I avoided college, knowing that it is a very expensive platform for bullshit, like passing a crazy, rambling wino on 7th avenue who is waving around huge cardboard signs and screaming about the rapture, handing him your life savings, and sitting down on the hot piss-stained cement to take it all in. Nevermind the junk-sick lunatic raving, nevermind the heat, the lack of substance, the fact that you are broke and not really learning anything...

Yes, this was three years ago, three long and luminous years in which my soul grew immensely. I graduated from Arizona State University last December, however, and my disposition regarding the years I spent at ASU is very much the same. Alas, I am happy to have gotten my Bachelor's degree, and grateful for the stimulation of my mind that did occur. One of the few excellent instructors that I had was an excellent poet-- Mr. Norman Dubie, who, during one of his workshops, tore down the last remaining speck of my writer's ego, and allowed me to build something beautiful. To him I am grateful.