Imagine a writer, not so different from yourself, living eternally in the basement of their best friend's house. Yes, this may seem like a tale of pity and a lack of success, because that writer is twenty-three years old and doesn't have a job besides gathering the various papers strewn about the driveway and occasionally on the front stoop, but there's something beautiful in that writer's head that should be kept in the basement of a married couple's home, and that writer is hoping to explore it.

That spark has been blooming for a while now, ever since the writer discovered the ancient typewriter in the dusty confines of their parents' attic back somewhere in Paterson, a place on which he chooses not to reflect despite dwelling in it currently, and eventually the writer's fingers snapped at him to type something worthwhile onto its rusting keys, and at last there was the first draft of a one page thriller partially plagiarized from the plethora of used history textbooks littered across the chilled stone of the basement floor.

That's where it started, so long ago in his creative childhood, but that is certainly not where it ends. The writer has endured three novels and now weekly updates on his blog, The Metaphysicist, which receives a frequent splurge of comments before settling back down for a few moments to collect the readers' praise for something with which the writer has replaced fiction writing entirely, and that's his life now. It's not a glamorous life, per se, but it's the only one he was endowed, and lord knows humans always mess theirs up. He's doing well behind all of the layers of caffeine to hide the violets sprouting from underneath his eyes, behind the fountain of hair spraying from his head, behind the reassuring clicks and swipes of his computer mouse to produce an article the public will devour in the span of a few minutes and then share with their equally as astute companions, and the writer is fueled by that. That's why he continues to write, because after forcing himself to chug through a chapter every day in the novel writing phase, stringing words onto a page isn't so magnificent anymore unless there's feedback to clarify that his hard work is deeply appreciated to the mind of an intellectual.

So, in a way, basking in the glow from the computer screen late into the night is the sole life of a writer such as this one, in addition to avoiding the pleas of Edie Parker to get his ass up here because she's been cooking all day for him and her husband Jack, and the writer won't relinquish it for anything, for it's all that they are accustomed to.

To be upfront with you, this writer is me, and beyond all of the hardships of hating every word I spew out onto the digital canvas of my laptop, being that writer is quite the treat when I'm not sobbing in the dark because I killed yet another character whose demise flew to me while I was choking on chamomile tea, and Jack Kerouac and Edie Parker are simply fine with that, so I don't push them and ask if they really are fine, as I've been hoarding every last drop of milk from their refrigerator in my stomach without so much as a word to them about it, and I'm pretty sure I've broken their washing machine once or twice since I've been residing here as well. Long story short, these boundaries exist for a veritable reason, and I prefer just to wallow in the dimly-lit basement of their New Jersey cottage so that I can never cross them.

And usually that entails never leaving the house unless Edie scolds me for being a worthless ingrate who only benefits from her one sidedly, but today is a different occurrence where I am required to haul myself out of bed and trudge to the library for another article to appease the public and make them think I'm a pretentious scholar who understands more things than I actually do, but the bed feels nice and cozy and precisely like sinking into a blissful ignorance that I should despise but never want to escape from, and it is only with the reminder that Edie isn't awake during this time of morning to reprimand me that I tumble from the mattress with a belt already restrained within my fingers for utilization and for the stability I manufacture whenever I flee the house to research the topics of my articles.

I'm basically a corpse after everything I've written and after the hours of dreamless sleep I've abandoned, but writers are never really alive at all anyway. We wear a meat suit, a veneer of intelligence and composure, when we are, in fact, crumbling on the inside, when we are blocking our lids against the dirt of our graves, when we are nothing more than a transmitter of the agony associated with decay, and that is why I'm moving with the energy of a snail towards my dresser to throw the traditional sweater and the traditional pair of cargo shorts over my degenerative body, because quite frankly I don't give a shit about my appearance anymore and whether or not my clothes match.

Though that aforementioned degenerative body is an irreversible wreck, my mind is not, even if some people would argue the opposite. My mind is already aware that there will be a suggestion for an article in my inbox, so on instinct I reach for my phone to scroll through the heaps of words my readers never think are better than mine, but I wonder what would happen if they were cognizant of the mess I am. I live in a dark and dreary basement in some unknown town called Paterson, New Jersey, for Pete's sake. I'm nothing special, yet as I open the first comment, it feels like I am.

Maybe it's not so much feeling special to the reader, rather to the universe, because lo and behold: the universe has selected me to write about the shitstorm that is rhyme and meter, as if I haven't suffered through enough of that on the wild campus of Columbia University, and I suppose it's unfair to jump to conclusions before delving into its facts during my trip to the library, but the reader asked for my brutally honest opinion, so it's my brutally honest opinion that I'll provide them with.

At first, I had no problem with rhyme and meter. I couldn't really care less about them, so I supplemented my poems with them from time to time, but it was when they became the fundamental property of elegant writing that I refrained from indulging in their effects as much. Nothing is entitled to as much space as rhyme and meter is in every educational institution and every writing blog. I enjoy consuming the space I deserve, but even I, the socially inept hermit crab, can draw the line, yet those two principles cannot, and they've been drilled into my brain and the brains of other young writers to the point where they find it acceptable to message me about writing an article on them.

If I weren't so intractable, I'd drop the subject, delete the comment, pretend like I didn't see it from its spot under the masses of other comments I acquire each day, and then I'd move on with my dismal existence, but that is not the case for this matter. I have a lot to say about the demons that are rhyme and meter, and it is my faith that a few people will be enlightened due to my documented opinion from the Internet of all places, where the old people never supply credit, and hopefully I can awaken a few more writers to the fact that writing is about free expression, about saying what you need to say because you need to say it, not because you're being forced into saying it with the breath of your guardians digging its claws into your feeble neck pricked by the chill of being observed for your opinion. They are being obstructed now, by these laws portrayed by college professors as superior to amorphous beauty when they can instead be equal or can be weighed by a homo sapien's perception. No human needs bullshit paradigms like rhyme and meter in their lives to compress them. Speak freely, and soon you will realize that you are living more extraordinarily than even a connoisseur, with the aggregate of life your bittersweet wine.

For the current moment, I'm trapped within the walls of a world who believes that rhyme and meter are the essentials to splendid writing, so it is my tacit job to dispel that theory, 'cause it's not like I have any other job.

So shoving secrecy into the soles of my battered shoes whom I never wear, I saunter towards the front door to Edie and Jack's house and slip outside to stroll across the sidewalk with the clear destination of the library suspended and unaffected even in my racing mind.

Rhyme and meter will meet their downfall if it's the last thing I do. Yes, some of my readers are going to hate me for this, but I don't really give a shit. It needs to be said, and writing is all about saying those risky things. 

~~~~~

A/N: allen is more famous than me on tumblr I'm prepared to fight

yeah so this story is gonna be hella lit and hella pretentious (why do I sound like hillary clinton or should I say HELLAry clinton amirite haha yeah I'm so #relatable lol stay woke m8 whatevs)

I'm Dakota (he/they) hello there......,,,,get ready for pain

you can stop by on tumblr and find me @barricaderats  or @purrkatorium or on instagram @colddeadrats if you want to say hi

and here is the spotify playlist for this book:  https://open.spotify.com/user/nostrilartist/playlist/7ril01DBCjHNsKXNfVYTVA

I'm going to do a "today's branch of philosophy is" thing at the end of each chapter because this story is SO intellectual of course why would it be n o t ;why would I ever be s t u p i d what??? WHAT

metaphysics: dealing with the first principles of things, such as being, knowing, existing, etc. (this happens to be my favourite)

~Dakota