Cringey Poems and the Joys of Authenticity by Sekai

Cringey Poems and the Joys of Authenticity by Sekai - August 2023 Scholarship Essay

I had 2 hours before my school's poetry contest submission form closed and I hadn't typed a single word in the document. Around 2 to 3 hours before the deadline, I realized that I wouldn't be able to pull anything together in time. I accepted my ultimate demise. Then, piercing through the spiral of my overcomplication of a school poetry contest, my dad asked me if I wanted to go running with him. I never liked running, but I agreed nonetheless. Anything to distract me from my own insanity.

I returned with aching knees, doused in sweat, and with frustration from my writer's block (and my apparent inability to run). I had 30 minutes before the form closed. I trudged to my room to massage my knees in defeat, but when my toes reached the threshold of my doorway something clicked. I don't remember the initial thought that would eventually lead to the utter decimation of my laptop keyboard, but within seconds I found myself clacking away at the keys, spewing word vomit all over the google doc page. Submitting in my own insanity.

27 minutes: I would first talk about my cousin, the one that texted me about how much she hated the COVID lockdown ever day. She was so young, she didn't know what was going on, she was frustrated. I would tell her that it would be over soon.

19 minutes: Then my window, stretching from one side of the universe to the other, reaches the edges of my brain, the edges of the world. it was a portal to my imagination covered by specks of smog

14 minutes: I would thank my dad for making me bacon everyday. And as my table would fester and sore as my aching knees once did, only finally would it's sustenance fuel my frustration. Thanks for giving my table (and potentially me) cancer, dad

10 minutes: And then, I would apologize for submitting this piece of writing so late.

9 minutes: I realize that this poem is way too long so I would have to disassemble the truth

8 minutes: Is this my legacy, this rushed piece of vomit. This is my Kent Place, 9th grade, new beginning, full-proof bonfire legacy. A legacy I now learned was constantly changing, a legacy that I will someday forget. I didn't take into account how overdramatic I was

7 and the rest of the minutes: I would submit the work. It would be titled: Insanity Rising, a name that would make future Sekai physically cringe, but a name nonetheless. But I would change it 3 years later to make it less cringeworthy. Though despite the cringe, I wouldn't regret any of it; it helped me win the contest after all.
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I think out of all of the things I've made, out of all of the essays and personal projects and submissions, As an creative in nature, I feel as though this lesson, as trivial as it may be, was the most important for me to learn as I navigated my highschool life. I always felt as if everything I did had to be carefully and crafted and calculated to my design, or at least to what I thought that "design" was. However, those calculated outcomes always left me unfulfilled and unhappy with my work (though it makes sense, STEM was never my strong suit after all). However, for those 20 minutes of anxiety, fatigue, but passion induced writing, I truly felt like I was creating something from the heart, something I could dare-I-say even be proud of. Then I discovered it, what that feeling was when I read through my poem: authenticity. Through allowing myself to spontaneously create while experiencing that purest form of that emotion, I was able to be authentic to myself, to write what I truly felt deep in my heart rather than I thought sounded deep in the moment. To reveal the true nature of one's soul and emotion. Spontaneity birthed that authenticity, and that authenticity birthed one of my favorite poems.

While I am not trying to say that I creatively peaked in ninth grade (that would actually be extremely unfortunate), I will say that being able to discover what authenticity meant to me at that moment is a feeling that I will never forget. Over time I learned to carry that authenticity into everything I create, as well as my everyday life. It has helped me evolve as a creative and storyteller, it has helped me create unbreakable bonds with my peers, it has even helped me write essays like these. And I know that it will help me do that and more in the future. I believe that lessons like these, the ones you find in the smaller moments of your educational experience, are the ones that you keep with you throughout highschool and beyond. They are lessons you are forced to discover for yourself, the ones who reveal who you truly are on the inside, the authentic lessons. And I've found that these lessons are oftentimes the ones you tend to remember, perhaps it's because these lessons are oftentimes the most rewarding.