Don't Drink Bees

The day before Valentine's Day they found a tumor in my brain. I had known that they would. It was my own fault - for educating myself. Education can be a deadly thing - especially if you are myself, an individual who employs avoidance coping strategies often in the form of psychosomatic disorders.

For the laymen, these disorders are not imagined in the least bit. I am not a hypochondriac, nor a malingerer. My ailments are as real as you are. Sometimes I fear they are more real than the both of us put together - the way they steamroll my life. Well, that's the way I see it. My brain views itself as helping, creating an illness which allows me to avoid something troubling to my psyche. I trade emotional pain for physical pain and never solve any problems. I've known it myself for some time. And the many counselors I have seen agree with my "diagnosis." I didn't stick around for a cure. I didn't want my behavior modified. Besides, when did I have time to roam Skinner's box? I had meetings to attend, policies to outline, ideas to sell, places to run.

I'm always in motion, and I like it that way. I dallied with one of the counselors long enough that he had a chance to tell me that my lifestyle was causing the psychic pain which my body aided me in escaping from. I ground my cigarette into the ashtray and politely told the doctor that I had never asked for such help. He eyed the smoking ash. "I like the taste," I stated, checking my watch. My time was up, so I left and never returned. Smoking was not the difficulty. It kept me half-sane and choked the little bastard in my head who was working to create the opposite effect.

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