"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, because like I said, I am the physical embodiment of a story, 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 (Westpointe Plaza Movies 10), a time (1:20 PM Saturday, August 12^th), and an opinion (Eh, it was alright). I did all of this because the truth of the matter, deep down underneath the folds of the details and lies, was that I wanted to be accepted and understood.

This is the reason I lie. This is the reason I tell stories. This is the reason I am alive"