KU Honors Application Essay
Prompt: When did you know?
I have always known. I knew when the Nile still ran from white to blue, when the meteorite missed us narrowly and carved a new crater into the moon. I knew when the soles fell off the shoes and when the wheels fell off the wagons, and for days everyone stood stock still.
I knew when I was drowning there is no sea quite like the one that fills up lungs, no other raging quite so immediate. I knew when air was back in my lungs.
I knew when the bells rang high noon, when the dust kicked up around two sets of boots, ten paces and a shot to the heart between them. I knew when the shiny face in the mirror stopped crying she never would again, would only draw infinitely close, like a line approaching negative infinity never crosses the vertical asymptote. I knew when she woke up without tear ducts.
I knew when I had something to lose that I would surely lose it, and when I had the strength to run I did, ran to the top of the craggiest mountain and hid for months in the ugliest cave, drawing images I could not see on the walls with bloody fingertips, but loss found me anyway and took all that I had to lose away, leaving me alone with everything to gain. I knew when the shadow touched the wall.
When did you know? I always have. We are of this world and it is of us, and I have always known. When the sun set into a red sky at night, I knew. When the flowers opened and radiance erupted from their mud freckled faces, I knew. When the dream became its own reality, the simulation its own world, life’s meaning and purpose obscured by the haze of illusion, I knew. I knew when the world got complicated, when one day it was decided that the truth is the truth only in the most general sense, and fiction reigned, for the only mouth that cannot lie is the one which never claimed to tell the truth. I knew when the icebox rattled there was only ice inside.
I knew when I woke up and it was tomorrow that time travel was only a matter of whether one chooses to live in the past, present, or future. I knew when the smoke cleared and the world was white with falling ash that it was finally over, everything we ever fought for buried deeper each second under a blanket of dirty snow. I knew when the dragon left the lake that there was no lake, and when the soldier left for war he would come back war-torn. I knew when I blew air into the lungs of the CPR mannequin that it would not wake up, but I did my thirty chest compressions anyway because it deserved a chance at armless and legless life.
When did you know? I always have.
