I know Father B came to our class more times than you can count, and
denounced all those mortal sins with a firm pointed finger and
one big bulging eye that glared at you in your stiff collared shirt and preppy plaid kilt while he spoke, as if
a white lie or one slice of pizza too many would
send a divine bolt of lightning straight through your chest or
a note home to your parents.

but I left the house once,
and there are some things no one else will tell you.

first of all,
when you tell a lie or eat too much pizza,
all you get is a nasty stomachache,
which feels a bit like a punishment, but you get another chance
and next time, you tell the truth and
eat just enough to fill your belly.

you don't lose any vision at all if you ******* and
people do it
a lot.

speaking of,
***
happens outside of marriage.

actually, I might be so bold as to say that MOST ***
happens
outside of marriage.

sometimes, people have ***
with people they don't love.

people marry people they don't love, too,
or grow into love or
fall out of it just as easily.

and sometimes people love people
they are not having *** with.

you can love someone so much that it physically hurts,
and you will put your tear-stained hand to your aching chest and understand exactly where the phrase "broken heart" comes from.

and sometimes you won't know
how you feel about other people or
about anything, really.

people aren't just bad or good like that –
there are some bad people,
and there are some good people, but
most people
are just lost and
lonely, and
looking for someone who will be the answer to the giant, crying
questions they have curved themselves into.
they read books and go to bars and get promotions and
wear framed glasses and make appointments and call their lawyers and buy apartments and make resumes and get married and divorced all like they know what they're doing, but
most of the time,
they are just taking shots in the dark, and
trying not to feel guilty about
the people they hurt
along the way...

you live under a rock now, and
one day suddenly it'll feel like you've exploded out and
into a hellhole, and honestly,
as far as I can tell,
there are no secrets to life carved into some mountain somewhere, or
arranged in the patterns of your veins, or
even written in a giant bible, but
the one redeeming quality of life is that we can
suffer together.

we're all tired and directionless, but
two warm calloused palms fit together so much better than you think,
and waffle fries taste like heaven at 1 in the morning with friends,
and staying up all night talking with someone and finding out they are just as tired and directionless as you are
makes you realize all of a sudden–– like
seeing the faraway glimmer of two little headlights
on a dark empty highway––
that it's okay.
and
you may be more lost than you can even tell, but
at least you know now
that you're not alone.