In Truth, You Like The Pain. You

And It's California, Where Everything Is Powerfully Strange. Everyone Wants It To Be Home. Everyone Left Where He Or She Was From With Dreams Of Transformation. Everyone Runs Away To California At Least Once, Or At Least All The Lonely, Hungry People Do.

Madness Will Push You Anywhere It Wants. It Never Tells You Where You're Going, Or Why. It Tells You It Doesn't Matter. It Persuades You. It Dangles Something Sparkly Before You, Shimmering Like That Water Patch On The Road Up Ahead. You Will Drive Until You Find It, The Treasure, The Thing You Most Desire. You Will Never Find It. Madness May Mock You So Long You Will Die Of The Search. Or It Will Tire Of You, Turn Its Back, Oblivious As You Go Flying. The Car Is Beside You, Smoking, Belly-up, Still Spinning Its Wheels.

In Truth, You Like The Pain. You Like It Because You Believe You Deserve It.

[i] Learned ... That Friends Are A Good Source Of Food And Soul When One Has Not Yet Gotten The Hang Of Cooking Or Living (as Opposed To Dying) Alone. That Nothing-not Booze, Not Love, Not Sex, Not Work, Not Moving From State To State-will Make The Past Disappear. Only Time And Patience Heal Things. I Learned That Cutting Up Your Arms In An Attempt To Make The Pain Move From Inside To Outside, From Soul To Skin, Is Futile. That Death Is A Cop-out. I Tried All Of These Things.

Me And My Needs Were Driving My Mother Away. Me And My Needs Retreated To My Closet, Disappeared Into Fairy Tales. I Started Making Up A World Where My Needs Wouldn´t Exist At All.