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Dear Professor Gludlum,

I’m about to go to college–quite a shock for me, as you can imagine.  I’m finding myself very, vastly, frighteningly, incredibly unprepared for this life-changing experience.  Can you perhaps give me some advice on how to prep myself?  (It is especially difficult for me to decide what to pack.)

Sincerely yours,
Me
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Dear Me,

I have a gift that I must give
But the person it is intended for
Has gone away from here

They won’t be back
But it is wrapped
And locked away in a drawer

I woke up this morning with a grasshopper on my face
Hoping around like he owned the place
I displaced him gently on my back porch
I wonder what happened to him after that
I’ll never know
Unless I wake up tomorrow with a friend of his
Thumping around on my forehead
Instead of killing him dead
I’ll pick him up and say to him
Do you know what happened to that tiny grasshopper yesterday
Not expecting a response from him I’ll listen carefully
For any sound
But there’s no sound because he’s a bug

I don’t really know why you should stay

But I feel like maybe you should

I see you there as you walk away

You don’t know you misunderstood

Now let me say this loud and clear

There’s no one else anywhere

That can make me as proud

As I am in my love for her

She’s why I wake up everyday

And try my best

She’s why I turned my back on you

And everyone else

She’s always been right by my side

But deep inside, I can not hide

From the feelings that pulse from within

Sometimes in my head

I think how beautiful it would be

To have a world that chose

To live so peacefully

To end all the wars

And dismantle poverty

To disengage slavery

And embrace our own liberties

But I think of the art

That’s come from all the pain

And all of the insight

That we have yet to learn

Sometimes in my head

I think how beautiful it is

To have a world that chose

To be a work in progress instead

There are good men out there

On my best days I travel among them

I see the sights of valors

And the righting of injustice

The caves of eternity shall fall before them

Into the bleak, dark aspic

I cringe as I exit their gallows

Their journey extends onward

From their ancestors and to their progeny

I fall to my knees as I realize I exist between two Earths

The one I created and the one I’ll destroy

As I weep like a little boy in the dust

I look up at the kings that seem unaffected

I never learn my way around

And that’s okay

I live a simple life

Just the way I want it

I have a place for games

And places to fill my stomach

There isn’t much else

And that’s the way I love it

I invite over a person sometimes

And we laugh and share a story

I never go to parties

Or enjoy being out in public

There’s a stigma with that

And I think it’s a choice

I’ll change my behavior when I change my mind

But for me it works just fine

One can get by on technology