They said I needed to practice adjectives. So.

You are not here to play. You do not belong.

There is no music in your heart, no poetry in your soul. You have been told that often. You believe it now, and know it is true.

There is no beauty in your mind. It is unable to go through the twists and turns of labyrinthine passages with rose-covered walls ornamented in thorny verse that the poets here take.

Writing is a journey. But you are stuck in a land where it is best to be quick and direct: no straggling behind, no gallivanting about—no looking down or left or right-- it is how to avoid seeing the dead babies, the starving children and toothless crones that litter your way. You look straight ahead, walking as fast as you can, trying not to see the dried-up women barely in their teens, under the fallen arches of doorways in condemned buildings with peeling green paint, waiting for the rancid greasy old men who will decide who lives, who dies, who gets to eat another meal for the day.

You write quickly, without breathing; to pause will only cause you to inhale the acrid stench of old urine, causing your lungs to burn and your eyes to water, then you will have to stop, here, in this place you are in a hurry to leave.

It has been said that to seek the best prose, one must look no further than the asylum, and you are glad you are not part of that search. Your mind is not yet broken, the pieces of it are still held together by spit and duct tape, wrapped carefully in a yellowed handkerchief, and it will keep, if you hurry.

Hurry. Remember that it is not the best prose you seek, only the exit.