Some bathrooms around campus are pristine – graffiti-free walls glimmer in the sunlight, the toilet paper is full, and there is no fear of catching anything when you sit down. Others are not so aesthetically pleasing: furtive curses drift out from the stalls where unlucky students perch precariously on the seats. But there is a wonderful set in between – bathrooms that are clean, yet provide reading material or a canvas to express oneself while in the stall.

Perplexing thoughts plague student minds daily: they struggle to understand why things are the way they are, the meaning of life and love, and why people change. Inspiration can come at the most obscure times; insight must be documented immediately, even if the person is currently sitting in a campus bathroom stall.

Annie Colletti, sophomore in Media, said the words in Lincoln Hall bathrooms provide reading material for her during the long nights of dance rehearsal.

“I read it,” Colletti said. “But I think if people want to communicate their point of view, there are more effective ways of doing so.”

An unknown author posed this question on the first stall on the bathroom on the first floor of Lincoln Hall: “Is eating a mermaid considered cannibalism?” Others have responded, and yet still the question lingers – if mermaids really existed and were poached, would it be cannibalism if it is half human? If one only ate the fish part, they would still be severely harming the individual,

Still, not all of the comments in this bathroom have a comical intention. One student wrote, “I love someone who will never love me back,” and it touched someone else so deeply they felt the need to respond In a smaller, slanted cursive, “Then teach your heart to move on without looking back.”

Easier said than done, but still the intention was good. These are some deeply personal thoughts that someone felt the need to express with the entire female population that traverses Lincoln Hall.

Still, perhaps the best example of the eloquence of bathroom graffiti lies in the English Building’s women’s bathroom located on the first floor. A mural is tucked away in the far stall that has remained seemingly untouched, a beautiful composition of lyrics, quotes and phrases written in different color inks, surrounded by random illustrations.

One author quoted Emily Dickinson: “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the line without hearing the words at all.” Another student made the witty retort of “My parrot does that too,” proving that English students like to joke around too, even in regards to one of America’s best-known poets.

Not all of the quotations are literary however. Carolyn O’Hale, junior in LAS, contributed to the wall, just for the sake of contributing and used a favorite quote.

“I wrote, ‘Don’t look back – somebody might be gaining on you,'” O’Hale said. “I always love reading that stuff because it is so artsy and creative and inspiring a lot of the time. I like that bathroom the best out of any on campus because there is just so much stuff on it.”

Another author, within the outline of a red heart shot with an arrow, wrote the words, “Never let someone you love out of your life.” Many of the passages concern the realm of love, something that plagues many writers’ and students’ minds. The end effect of the graffiti is a microcosm of the student experience – both good and bad.

There are some faded words, towards the top of the wall, that are only visible if you look close enough. They echo with the pain of the student who wrote, “I hate my anorexia.” These deep words are written close to the phrase, “I am a teenage cancer,” and they stand apart from the otherwise positive messages of the wall. Still, they speak to a generation of women who struggle with their body image and themselves a person.

These etchings move away from the traditional trashy messages one would find on the wall of a bathroom and provide a more or less positive message for all those who read it.

It is probably due to the inoffensive nature of the messages that they have not been taken down, said Cory Anderson, communications coordinator for facilities and services,

“Our policy is to remove all graffiti regardless of the content,” Anderson said. “However, it can be problematic because of the size of the campus. We rely on students and faculty to call it in, but since the nature of the content is not offensive, that is probably why it has not been called in.”

Yet, if it happened to be painted over and erased, O’Hale said she would not be angry about it.

“If they cleaned it, people would just write new things,” O’Hale said. “It would be like a blank sheet of paper for students to start over.”

The quotes in this article are only a few of the many quotations, drawings, and thoughts that adorn the bathroom walls in Lincoln Hall and the English Building.

Have a favorite that was not mentioned or another good place for graffiti on campus? Sound off on the Web site – just make sure to keep it clean!