The search for inner peace. Does anyone really have right answers? Does anyone know the answer to the age-old question? Everyone disagrees. Some people meditate; some people pray; some people just earn money or sex with many nameless and faceless strangers until one day their sins catch up to them and they die.

But, of course, there’s a difference between inner peace and avoidance conditioning. Avoidance conditioning is, to my understanding and all the wisdom of a psychology school dropout, a psychological term. This term means that people avoid something they do not want to face. They avoid junk food because it makes them fat, they avoid caffeine because it gives them the jitters. They avoid talking about things they don’t understand because it makes them feel fragile and scared.

I avoid people. I always feel like everyone staring at me. I’m afraid to make friends because I’ve been hurt, used, abused, and there are some days that I’m still convinced I’m a failure. I avoid talking about my pain because I feel like other people won’t understand.

When my life was easier, whiskey was flowing at warp speed. I can still taste; it tasted like I was wrapped in a blanket near a warm crackling fire on a fall day.

I remember when life was easy, curled up with a book, away from everyone. Life is never been comfortable. Needles, knives, drugs, poison, suicidal thoughts, unexplainable range. Has life ever been easy or am I just high?

300 words? I asked you, how can I possibly put my entire life into 300 short words?

Are you crazy or is it me? People say I’m crazy, other people say I’m lazy. I told those people that they don’t understand perfection. Maybe the truth is they’re undeserving of the perfection that is me. After all, I was created in God’s image and isn’t God perfect? And if so does that make me perfect? I believe it does. Does that make everyone perfect or just me?

My mistakes and misgivings were grave,
but maybe not as much as others.

After all, I was never a serial killer. I was never a bank robber. Someone accused me of being the next school shooter. That was ages ago. She’s the one we saw on the news. Drug possession and selling herself to buy more drugs.

Local news in a small town is never very interesting, but it sure travels fast.

I hate small towns, I really do. Everyone goes to church but spends the whole week mocking the sins of other people just because one person’s sins are different from another person’s wickedness.

I hate small towns because no one ever leaves them. When teenagers are young and idealistic, they talk about leaving; they want to go some place different and big, like Los Angeles, Denver, or Manhattan. Big dreams mean the lucky ones will be prison guards. How lucky would you be to be insulted and have things thrown at you, to be in fear for your very life every day? The unlucky ones work at McDonald’s, and Santa Clause won’t be visiting their kids yet again.

People think I’m crazy. At 15 I learned that Hawaiian Punch pairs well with cheap rum.

People think I’m crazy. I like reading about the Trench Coat Mafia.

I have empathy for psychopaths, isn’t that weird? I guess I have an affinity for them, so I’ve dated a couple. And for some reason, psychos always seem to find me. Maybe that’s why I’m so messed up. Maybe I’m tired. Maybe life is confusing.

Maybe I want to be an adult really bad so I can be the one that gets out of this town. Maybe I want to be the one breaks the cycle and prove them wrong.

Maybe I want to go out west. Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe I can come in with a grizzly bear’s enormous paws and my tiny hands, as a razor claw dances dangerously close to my soft human skin.

Maybe I should go to Columbine and leave 15 flowers. Yes, I said 15, now shut up.

Another thing: what’s so bad about yellow Starburst? For the love of God, be a yellow Starburst! Don’t worry about the self-important pink Starburst.

What was I saying? Oh yeah, maybe I’ll go to Nebraska. Maybe I’ll take up smoking; I think it’s part of a Yellowcard song or something.

Maybe I’ll go to New York and see a Broadway play. I live in New York, but this place sucks. There are more cows than people. No one knows what New York really looks like. Yes, the streets are kind of dirty and, yes, they’re probably filled with a lot of drug addicts, but it’s mostly green rolling hills. Learn geography, please.

I’m afraid of planes, but I board them often. When you’re in a plane you’re up high and there’s nothing you can do if it crashes. Think about it, if you’re being chased by a crazed gunman, there’s a chance you could hide or run away. If you’re in a flood, you can grab on to something. What are you going to do if the plane crashes? Pray? All that’s going to do is make it so God forgives you, if there’s anything to forgive you for. We don’t really know the answer. God might be just as much the caddy as a high school cheerleader.

Life is hard sometimes. Dealing with the past and with the future. Things are harder. What do we do now? Do we do anything? Are we in control? Dealing with the past is really hard; flashbacks to the unpleasantness. I swear, I’m a headcase. A crappy psychologist fucked me over.

Life in dreams is beautiful; death and pain and blood; shotgun shells; nuclear war. Everything keeps spinning, even when someone dies and even when the world ends a new one will begin.

This is fiction, right?

Well, let’s hope so!

Radicalism, pink donuts, a glimpse into a jar full of rainbow sprinkles.

My psyche is cooler than yours.