Wingless Bird's Flight

HYPOXIA, pt. 2 / I.

I recently read a study that was published in a scholarly journal that found that memories really don't exist, but rather they are fragments of past experiences that we choose to believe happened. But the things I'm about to tell you actually happened, because I lived them. I really did have to talk to someone about my problems. I really did have someone cheat on me. I really did relate to Dill more than normal people. I really didn't drink any beer through my story, but I did smoke people to get them off my mind. I really did try to ruin someone's life. I did tell my best friend to fuck off, though I'm not known by many to swear. I really did almost hit a girl, but don't worry, I didn't. I did kill someone, though. Emotionally, of course. That's legal. Through writing this, I'm much better now. I know this is just the beginning, however, my life has ended in certain ways after showing you this. I hope you know how much you never helped me go through any of this, and now there's a fucking book written about it.

I once overheard a conversation between a struggling writer and a playwright the morning of a school wide production of "Lucky Me", which I highly recommend. I saw it the week before I started writing this book. I saw it with my girlfriend. The old ass playwright told the writer in passing that the best pieces of literature come from writers who write when they're in pain. If I follow this advice, this will be a fucking knockout. I hate books that waste my time, and ever since I came here, I've truly felt how short this life is. I've written down all of the things that I want you to know about me, although I'm keeping the rest. This is real, and I hope these memories are as uncomfortable for you to read as they were for me to live through.

Even as I sit here and write this, the memories I have of some of the people I wrote about haunt me to this day. Their ghosts knock on my window as I sleep, although it is awfully a nice arrangement living out here. I'm loved, and as for anyone, that's what matters the most. I hope you'll use this as the first chapter, prefacing everything you're about to read.

But, as with everything, I've been exhausted writing this book for you. It's taken great courage, but it is finished.