Sample of Lyric Essay

“Despite understanding the fictional status of the monster under the bed, children may nevertheless experience real fear of it.” (Gosetti-Ferencei, 95)

An argument against imagination proves its strength. If imagination will live
in our clenched teeth and squeezed eyes and present unnecessary anguish

beyond what we senselessly provide ourselves,
we might as well get rent and point it towards the edges of our lips and work to trap
butterflies in our ribcage.

“We may experience what amounts to an ‘actual response to imagined content’ in our thoughts” (Gosetti-Ferencei, 96)

Exploit it, dammit. We cannot sit unrestrained and be stoned.
Catch a stone, use your imagination to influence your life. If imagining a cat
in the mirror’s reflection in the mirror of the hair salon will make the time go by faster,
or watching a man run beside your car, jumping on phone lines and dancing on streetlights,
will make the drive more pleasant,
if we must live with the shadows in the corner of our eyes then we might as well make them dance.

“…Imaging that makes present to the mind something which is absent.” (Gosetti-Ferencei, 114)

Fake it till you make it. Till you realize maybe you were never faking it after all, till you realize you just needed to unparalyze your frozen bloodstream by promising yourself it wasn’t the real deal, that the possibility of it being real someday was enough. A step is distance.

there is a difference between history
as in dates and important names (those who got to write the books) to be tested and recited
and history
as in the stories/the people/the experiences that happened before the moment you read these words.
It is wild that every person we encounter, that we push past in a crowd or tease
Has had a childhood. Has affected others. Has been affected. Has made horrible mistakes. Every person has had good or bad grades, a favorite shirt or a silly crush or a soul-bending secret.
Our lives are composed of moments. They flicker by at a terrifying speed.
We have this urge to try and keep up, but it can’t be done. That’s okay.
Why spend our time chasing the clock, out of breath?

“I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.” (Dickinson, Emily)

In the car with my fire-year-old cousin
I’m singing In My Blood by Shawn Mendes Sometimes I feel like giving up!
Little Matias turns to me in all seriousness and says, Never give up.

Catherine Morland creates a murder mystery out of a meek family tragedy, We create more grief than we need.
The world has enough misery without us seeing more that isn’t there.
Or taking what isn’t ours.

Empathy helps us act kindly towards others, because we feel as if we are acting to ourselves. If we feel others’ pain, then we can experience their relief.
Leech in some of their joy.
A sponge has no filter though.

If an eye focuses on movement instead of stillness, We focus on grief more than joy.
The irregularity
Must be fixed

Why seek good moments if we don’t give them value?
Improve, yes. Learn from mistakes.
But enjoy victories. Even partial victories.
A lack of misfortune cannot be our goal, monotony cannot be our paradise.

Descartes said that because we have the concept of perfection, it must exist, even if no one has witnessed it before
I don’t think perfection is something you achieve after years of practice.

Sorry.
I think it just sort of happens.
It pops out in a bad joke that doesn’t land or a too-tight hug. Why do we have an obsession with being great
if we can be something much better?
Just… good.

“If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain.” Emily Dickinson

1. Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey. Penguin, 2008.
2. “Butler on Self-Love as Respect of Self.” Self-Love, Egoism and the Selfish Hypothesis: Key Debates from Eighteenth-Century British Moral Philosophy, by Christian Maurer, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2019, pp. 117–
   140. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctvggx4cn.10.
3. “IMAGINA TION, PERCEPTION, AND REALITY .” The Life of Imagination: Revealing and Making the World, by Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei, Columbia University Press, New York; Chichester, West Sussex, 2018, pp. 71–116. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/gose18908.7.
4. Lerner, Ben. 10:04. Picador, 2015.
5. Rankine, Claudia. Citizen. Graywolf Press, 2014.
6. “Trauma Autofiction, Dissociation, and the Authenticity of ‘Real’ Experience: Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Federman, Tim O’Brien, and Jonathan Safran Foer.” The Story of “Me”: Contemporary American Autofiction, by MARJORIE WORTHINGTON, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln; London, 2018, pp. 125–146.JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv7fmfvx.8.