Ninth grade feels extremely dark when I recall it. Technically, this time period is also "pre-journal," but I did a large amount of writing during this time period, and consider it to be the point at which I "woke up" to the world, and began to constantly contemplate, analyze, and judge all factors of it. At this time, my friendships with my three cardinal friends had just been fleshed out. I had a very difficult time at school, which gave me emotional issues for some time, but suffering breeds intellect. At this time, I began to become more than one of the hoi polloi. This was also, most certainly, the time in my life at which I withdrew the most from reality, always wrapped in some game, book, or anime. Outtings with my friends always had some imagination at play, making both the excursion and us something more. I was also just beginning to fully awaken to music, thus flooded myself in any of it around me, which you can get more commentary on in my playlist.

It should be noted now that most of these "journals" are actually the books of an anthology I undertook to create, entitled The Prophecy. This project of mine was meant to be written in a biblical style, with attempts to make each line situationally quotable. Each book was an allegory, striving to point out some flaw in society, or advise how to live, via a metaphor-heavy parable. Also, many of these books had a poem serving either as a foreword or afterwords. The title of this life phase is also the title of a poem I wrote just before beginning The Prophecy, which came to be the opening for the entire text. I think it was quite ambitious of a 14-year-old. The entire text has somewhat of a gothic air to it, however, and between that atmosphere and all the Switchblade Symphony I listened to at this time, I'm surprised that I never ended up going further down that path.