to everyone who has experienced the dissonance
of packaging themself up in a (virtual) envelope
and disseminating themself among subsets of society whose opinions they care about
for adjudication

The beginning and ending portions of the waltz are intended to caricature the ritual behind the veil of pompous formality often ascribed by college admissions officers to the admissions process (and legitimized by the exhortations of middle-class American society) as a Bacchic drawing of straws. The middle portion is intended to reflect on the genuine joy and suffering, often elicited by the years-long process itself, that applicants pour into their personal essays.

In order to avoid gender-related microaggressions, I have used the singular neuter “they.” Verbs conjugate as if it were plural.

Realized using Sibelius Sounds.

Gabriel S. Ehrlich