Today was bittersweet. It was my last literature clas of the year. Everything, from the very first day of that class, was leading up to today. This year I have watched God die and learned that you don't have to believe in God to believe that there is Something inside us and all around us that is greater and equal to our own creative powers. And I've learned that with words, we come into being. I have read poems and stories that have changed my life, and met characters and great writers who have thought things that I didn't know anyone else had. There are truths inside us all that have existed long before we knew how to call them by name. My teacher told us that the most important thing he wanted us to learn was this: "you are not alone". People have felt the same things that you feel. And he told us that all he wanted was to know that we are good people. He told us that some of us will live poetic lives, and some of us will live heroic lives. Quietly, maybe.But he told us to entertain the possibility of a connecting creative force in the unvierse. And it was beautiful. And I cried. He told me that he loves me in front of everyone. I don't know if everyone understood or cared about what we've learned. Maybe we've all learned different things this year, but I think it's amazing that we can come to similar conclusions. We've learned that everythign is connected, even in the random order of the universe. And we've learned that we are microcasms of the history of the world, which is reflected in the history of literature. In our lives, we've made the same journeys that humanity has made and continues to make. We've all been young and innocent and believed that monsters were external. And even though we've grown up, we realize that there is a certain wisdom in youth- a truth that the world has lost as we progress forward. I hope my classmates never forget that, and I hope I never do either. I've been so inspired by this class and this man. I've learned that literature, and, subsequently, the world, goes in cycles. I think there is something great that cycles though all of us, and connects us to something greater. I want to use everything that I've learned to channel my thoguths and share them with the world. This man has changed my life.

"Beloved, gaze in thine own heart. / Gaze no more in the bitter glass"
-William Butler Yeats, "The Two Trees" (The last poem we read together in class.)