Brad Pike

The line between life and death for me is so blurred, so precarious, a gust of wind would loosen my soul’s grip on its vessel. Still, though it would be very easy, I urge you not to murder me.

I had just spent at least an hour watching her soul disintegrate before my eyes and couldn’t bear to witness the final nuclear meltdown. It made me feel bad and stuff. Like ew, gross, feelings are gross.

I feel sorry for ugly people. Actually, that’s not true, but it’s a thought I deliberately generate sometimes in order to feel like I’m a good and caring person.

A photo of some acquaintance’s irrelevant child on Santa’s lap? Insert two kittens swatting each other with their tiny paws. In fact, paste them directly over the little boy’s dumb face. Enlarge them to cover Santa’s face too, to cover the sister standing nearby, to consume the entire photo — yessssss.

On the other hand, when couples argue, all that pragmatic rhetoric falls away, and what we’re left with is this: a contest to see who can say the most emotionally debilitating thing possible to the other person.

I keep knocking over cups and boxes. I forget where I left my keys, then forget why I wanted to go out in the first place. It’s got to be brain chemistry, some random combination of foods, beverages, sleep cycles, UV light exposure, and humidity that has crippled cognitive function.

So when I said, “I’ll get right on that,” she knew I was lying. I knew she knew I was lying. She knew I knew she knew I was lying, and yet, we both maintained the façade.

How can I make you my girlfriend in this split second? I saw your face, and I thought, ‘That’s her. That’s my girlfriend. Forever.’ You saw my face, and you thought, ‘That’s a person.’ The fact that my momentary presence failed to catch your attention strikes me as profoundly horrifying and against the will of the universe.

If you must get a liberal arts degree, do not get a creative writing degree. You will find yourself at age 23, living at your parents’ house, tweeting what you ate for dinner, posting links to YouTube videos of koala fights, and thinking, ‘Everyone must think I’m pretty great because I always post cool videos to Facebook.”

There are plenty of things you’re allowed to forget: your keys, the location of the nearest Whataburger, the name of the bass player for the Strokes. You can forget to feed your dog. You can forget to feed yourself. You can forget where you live. You can forget your own name. But one thing you cannot forget is your mother’s birthday.

Needless to say, I failed a lot of assignments. When it came time for the last test, I needed to pass or I risked failing the whole class and thus, senior year and thus, life. I did not react to these circumstances accordingly, so the test was difficult for me. Very difficult.

Human destiny is a tangled knot of anxiety I painstakingly unravel through my brilliant problem solving skills because I’m just that kindhearted. I’m like Oprah, the Extreme Home Makeover guy, and Dr. Phil all rolled into one omnipotent entity, a being outside time and space, overflowing with life-changing advice charity goodness love glitter.