High School Underground: Things I'll Never Get to Tell Admissions Counselors

I have been overwhelmingly busy with college applications, applying early decision to NYU with a deadline in five days. For those of you who don't know or haven't had to fill out short answer essays and the actual essay on the application let me tell you it is not easy. It's bad enough that I get prompts like "What intrigues you?" and "Evaluate a significant experience you've had and it's effect on you." but I'm confined to a response of 700 characters, 500 characters, or a maximum of 500 words.

This is not enough to say everything I am. These restrictions are not enough to properly evaluate my existence. So here is everything I'll never get to tell admissions counselors:

I’ll never get to say that I want the line “He took his vorpal sword in hand:” from Jabberwocky tattooed on my left back shoulder. That there are a thousand more reasons this poem intrigues me than simply the fact that it defied the previous conventions of the English language itself. I’ll never get to say that my brothers and father and mother all decided to get their own line from the poem branded unto their skin as well. 

I won't get to list the activities I do that aren't overtly developing my character. I won't be able to say that sometimes I read a book a day or that I've given my friends rides in desperate times and talked some out of suicide. I can't express all of what I've done in 500 words or less, 250 words or less.

I will never be able to explain that my interests in writing are more than just my love for words and how I always sought them out in times of need. They will never hear about how I lust for words and feel them overflowing in my head from dusk 'til dawn because these responses demand form, and linear thought, and have no room for abstractions or creative grammar and punctuation. I'll never get to fully express any of this to them because of this edit and re-edit cycle of practiced passion.

I will never get to talk about the bad things in my life, because they are viewed as weaknesses and red flags. I can't say how I've had insecurities, doubts, challenges that I am still overcoming. There is no room for self deprecating humor or confession in 700 characters or less, 500 characters or less.

I will never get to confess that there are times I am overwhelmed. That there are times I feel like quitting. I will never get to explain how I'm not sure just who I am yet or what I want to do. I will never get to tell them I am anything less than superhuman.

These are the things they will never know, the things that make me all of who I am.

I am more than 500 words or less.