This Life Is But The Childhood Of

I'd Been Staying At The Holiday Inn With My Girlfriend, Honestly The Most Beautiful Woman I'd Ever Known, For Three Days Under A Phony Name, Shooting Heroin. We Made Love In The Bed, Ate Steaks At The Restaurant, Shot Up In The John, Puked, Cried, Accused One Another, Begged Of One Another, Forgave, Promised, And Carried One Another To Heaven.

They Needed To Share One Secret After Another With A Beautiful Woman, To Peel Away Layer After Layer, Mask After Mask, And Still Find Themselves Worshiped.

There Were Many Moments In The Vine Like That One--where You Might Think Today Was Yesterday, And Yesterday Was Tomorrow, And So On. Because We All Believed We Were Tragic, And We Drank. We Had That Helpless, Destined Feeling. We Would Die With Handcuffs On. We Would Be Put A Stop To, And It Wouldn't Be Our Fault. So We Imagined. And Yet We Were Always Being Found Innocent For Ridiculous Reasons.

If You Write Fiction, You're By Yourself. There Are Certain Advantages To That In That You Don't Have To Explain Anything To Anybody. But When You Get In With Others Who Share The Loneliness Of The Whole Enterprise, You're Not Lonely Anymore.

And You, You Ridiculous People, You Expect Me To Help You.