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In This Issue

• Stephan Vincenzo: 2 Legendary 2 Die
• Columbia College Graduation Replaced by Job Fair
• Confessions of a Poppy Seed Eater
• Senior Wisdom: The Adventurous One
• Senior Wisdom: The Nostalgic One
• Senior Wisdom: The Old One
• Warning: Social Ruin May Occur
• "39 Steps" to Successful Comedy
• A Letter to the T.A. Currently Fellating Me
• Bored at Butler
• God Ashes on Europe
• YEEAAAAHH
• got meth?
• Letter From the Feditors
• They Watch
• The Staff of the Federalist

Loving, passionate, kind-adjectives that described me before I tried it. Before I walked into that well-lit den of nourishment. Before 113th and Broadway became my home, and my hell. Before time stopped and space-empty, deep space-began.

9:30 AM

I awake to the sound of my television in my tiny dorm room at Columbia University in the City of New York. Light pours in through my oversized window. Someone forgot to close the shades last night.

I inspect the bed. No comforter... Panic! What horrors besieged us in our poppy seed-fueled reveries!? I find it on the dresser, folded. How strange!

My mistress, Samantha, sits at the desk, watching Animal Planet. Samantha missed her 9:10 class-class has been replaced by something so much sweeter. Her thesis, due in two weeks, shines from the computer screen. She has barely finished writing it, has edited it once, maybe. She has become degenerate.

9:32AM

I have class at 10:35. I am slipping. I grab at our stock of poppy and find it empty. I shudder; my body, particularly my abdomen, pierces the air with a low grumble. My eyes water and I stare hard at the mirror. There are two of me...I am seeing things. I look behind me and see another mirror, a new mirror. Samantha is getting sloppy, using up our money. Money and poppy have become synonymous. She shrugs when I ask her about it, so I hit her with some YouTube videos to alleviate the tension.

9:40 AM

I cannot remember what just happened. I must have blacked out, or took a couple-minute cat-nap. Withdrawal is taking over. My feet aren't fitting into my shower sandals. Have I become a different person? Have those Nussbaum wonders turned me from man to beast?

Samantha tells me I was attempting to put on her much smaller flip-flops. The cold sweat on my brow begins to dissipate, but I cannot shake the feeling that what was once called Mitchell has given way to Madness.

9:55 AM

Fifteen minutes in the shower. Nine hundred seconds lost, forever. I barely have time to cross the street and get my poppy fix, then go to class in the building next door.

As a young boy, I used to laugh at the decadent weirdos who would hit ‘play all' when their ‘TV on DVD' viewing menu popped up. Mmm, popped. They were the type to shower for fifteen minutes, not me. But I am a poppy-eater now.

I dry off and spy Samantha, her head turned away from my naked body. She no longer leaves the room to protect my modesty. Despite my carnivorous hunger, I move deliberately into my pants, pants I haven't washed since yesterday. Then I put on my shirt. Maybe it is new, I don't even know.

10:10 AM

Time is running short. I step out of the elevator toward the entrance of my dorm. I stare at the floor, ashamed, unable to meet the gaze of my peers.

It is so bright outside. Through my squinted eyes, I am transported to Afghanistan. Countless fields of poppy seeds lay before me. I am a plain bagel, swimming. Laps and laps and laps. And, in a moment, I'm back. Under the sun. Outside Schapiro. I reach for my sunglasses- they're gone. I must have sold them to pay for my last fix, or I never owned a pair; truth is hard to come by when you're an addict.

I step into Nussbaum and Wu, embarrassed but determined. I check my wallet-only enough for one. I always look down at what I want, at my seed-god, point, and shamefully hand over my money. Not today. I point to another bagel, another seed, another sweet. I remove a crumpled bill and hand it to the cashier-the motion itself feels so good. I hurry away with my treasure, my Precious, wrapped in thin, white paper. I hear whispers in the distance-"that's sesame"-yes, I think to myself, it is.

I feel my pupils shrink to oblivion. Everyone dabbled in poppy in college, but sesame... My heart palpitates. The room brightens. I hear a buzzing noise, and behind the dealer's head I see a sign-a sign more true than anything has ever been.

This is not an exit.