I am the physical embodiment of a story. Every time I move my arm or open my mouth or words stumble off of my tongue and I make a fool of myself, it’s another page, another sentence, another scene in a story I’ll tell later, at some later date, as if all of that is in the past, behind me now. But that’s a big lie, like most of the stories I tell, and I’ll just continue writing it all with the swaying motion of my tongue and arms and lungs.
I tell stories sometimes to relate, escape, entertain, and connect with others. But mostly I tell stories because, as a child, I realized that nothing would properly convey the way that I felt, what I wanted, or where I needed to be the way that a story could. A specific example would be every time that I’ve lied about seeing a movie when someone asks a group “Has anyone seen [insert movie here]?” I’d say "yes, of course! Of course I have, I thought we were the only ones!" And instantly I’d created a story, a story about a time I’d gone to the movies with a family member or by myself or with friends. And it had a theatre name (Finchley Vue cinema), a time (1:20 PM Saturday, August 12th), and an opinion (Eh, it was alright). I do all of this because the truth of the matter, deep down underneath the folds of the details and lies, was that I didn't want anyone to know what I was really doing, or what I really thought. Instead, I tell them what other people, good people, did, what they thought.
This is the reason I lie. This is the reason I tell stories. This is the reason I am alive, to tell the story of the things that never came to pass, of the people who aren’t around to speak it for themselves.
I tell stories sometimes to relate, escape, entertain, and connect with others. But mostly I tell stories because, as a child, I realized that nothing would properly convey the way that I felt, what I wanted, or where I needed to be the way that a story could. A specific example would be every time that I’ve lied about seeing a movie when someone asks a group “Has anyone seen [insert movie here]?” I’d say "yes, of course! Of course I have, I thought we were the only ones!" And instantly I’d created a story, a story about a time I’d gone to the movies with a family member or by myself or with friends. And it had a theatre name (Finchley Vue cinema), a time (1:20 PM Saturday, August 12th), and an opinion (Eh, it was alright). I do all of this because the truth of the matter, deep down underneath the folds of the details and lies, was that I didn't want anyone to know what I was really doing, or what I really thought. Instead, I tell them what other people, good people, did, what they thought.
This is the reason I lie. This is the reason I tell stories. This is the reason I am alive, to tell the story of the things that never came to pass, of the people who aren’t around to speak it for themselves.
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