When I was five years old, I learned how to lie. I realized that I had already lied some in my short life and I, as a result, learned that the truth did not always get me what I wanted. I vividly remember the moment I constructed the lie I was going to tell my parents about my teacher; I was sitting in the back bathroom of my house, sifting through stories and choosing the most believable one. Beforehand, throughout many discussions of honest pleading, I had begged my mom to place me in a different kindergarten classroom, for my teacher’s wheelchair scared me. And reluctantly, my mom stood her ground, seeking for this situation to be a life lesson for me, hoping that I would learn to love the teacher in the chair, and inevitably, learn the life lesson about people with disabilities.
I did not see it this way, though, and as a result of my mother’s stubbornness to not have me removed from the class, I recited to my parents a false story of a harsh punishment the teacher gave to me. My parents, being the typical soccer mom and overprotective father, took my story to the school’s principal and pleaded with the administrators that not only I be removed from the classroom, but that the teacher should be fired, as well. After steering through my story piece by piece, the school officials and my parents learned something about me: I have a strong imagination, and I am a liar. My innocent and ashamed parents were embarrassed to learn the truth that their five year old daughter could lie so well. The school officials took different measures, and had me sent to a different elementary school (out of district), for they knew they had too much on their hands with a child like me. Three weeks later, at the different elementary school, I was tested for gifted.
I recognize now that my actions were juvenile and inconsiderate, and I feel somewhat embarrassed when I retell this story. No one likes to be known as a liar, more or less, a liar with intentions to harm another person’s job/well being/etc. But looking back on the situation now, I understand that the real catch about this five-year-old lie was not to get the teacher into trouble, or because I was scared of the disabled; the real reason for this lie was to see if I could construe a situation into the way I wanted it to be. I wanted to test how much power I could have as an individual. I succeeded in discovering my limits of power, and even if my parent’s punishment was harsh for the lie, I still felt accomplished knowing that I had the power for a minute amount of time.
The lying is something I have carried with me throughout my life, for I lie to strangers more than I tell them the truth. I usually create some incredible story about how my life is moving, how I have touched others, or how I am just a complete sleaze-ball and looking for the next man I can get into my bed. If I have only met someone once or twice, there is a high chance I lied to them. It has become a habit I cannot break. My lies today have changed from my younger lies; they are now governed by morals which maintain the extent of what the lie is. Since becoming a young adult, I have developed a moral code which I now refuse to tell a lie which could hurt someone (such as, the lie with my kindergarten teacher). Instead, the lies are mostly about myself, and are developed for a purpose.
I try out the characters that develop in my lies multiple times in different situations and to a different audience, shifting little details here and there of the lie to make it seem more believable to the listener. I gauge the reactions, formulate, and then retell the lie to the next listener with a more deliberate emphasis on my mutations. For example, I test what a “sleaze-ball” would say to a Christian, and then I judge the religious response, therefore better understanding how an audience would perceive such a character. Once my characters are perfected, they evolve into the fiction that I have written since I was young.
Whether it is because my lying has improved or because I have gained a better understanding of literary technique, my fictional stories have developed greatly since the early years of their arrival. My characters now develop strongly into convincingly believable beings, complete with appropriate humor and reasonable conflict. It has taken years to develop this skill, for when I first began writing fictional stories, I found my main characters mostly remained female, complete with the depth of a puddle to accompany them.
When I was nine, I created my first character: a girl named Trisha-Andy, complete with a love for soccer and for playing outside. Trisha-Andy had a crush on a boy named Michael, who had very similar qualities to the real Michael I was in love with in the third grade. The only lying in this fiction which differed from my real life scenario was the name change of the girl, and the end result of Michael realizing he was in love with her. The story ended as abruptly as it climaxed, for my ability to tell a story/lie had not been perfected at the time I wrote it.
Last summer, when I was twenty-one, I completed a short story for a creative writing class, which proved to be my best form of fiction. I decided to try a different approach to this piece, and I wrote the first person narrative from a male point-of-view. The unnamed character was based off my current boyfriend, full of insecurities and sharp witticism to hide them. I found this piece the most effective because I found my “style” through writing as him; it took a lie for me (as the author) to finally have a strong voice in the story. I was able to place ideas into the character’s head without the interference of my personal female psyche governing the character’s reactions. It took a complete lie for me to establish my writing style. Below is an excerpt from the short story, serving as an example for my ability to create a character much different than myself:
“I was standing a few feet from her with a decent enough drunk to feel that familiar swell of confidence. Sarah is a different case, though- she has kept things level for me since the day we met in the ninth grade. And way her half moon smile flashed at me ensured that the confidence I was feeling was justified. I knew, then and there, that this was my last chance for the night.”
Lying has given me the ability to seek past the mundane, and attempt something out-of-the-realm when writing my fiction. My characters, most likely, always get what they want and maintain a relatively high level of enthusiasm throughout their stories. Writing fiction, and lying, has given me the power to create happiness. When I write poetry, though, the truth seems to leak out across the page, filling the stanzas with an air of sadness which has haunted me since I was younger. Through my literary collections, I have discovered that my poetry is the only place that the truth is told, leaving me feeling raw and exposed once the lines are complete.
When I was nineteen, I wrote a poem about the sorrow I felt after a boyfriend and I broke up. The fresh, young heartbreak was recorded in rhyming lines with little effort; I chose to write so simply to express the vulnerability that I was familiar with. Titled “Mo(u)rning,” the poem focused on a single action of making the bed in the morning after sleeping alone for the first time in a year. Lines such as “Another morning of an empty bed/ I kick off the covers and reveal myself dead,” were effective for such a work, because I was so single-minded at the time, only able to focus on one thing without being overwhelmed. To this day, whenever I revisit this poem, I still feel haunted by the depth of pain I remember I was in- the truth of the poem is enough to bring me back down. Who likes to revisit something so memorable that it still hurts?
When I was twenty-one, I wrote a poem called “We Would Have Been Judas” which addressed different social issues in an abstract way. Instead of focusing on a precise moment as I did in “Mo(u)rning,” I attempted to focus on humanity as a whole, and the ways that we desert one another in a time of need. The continuum of a sad-tone remained consistent even in this poem, but I did find that the language was more advanced than the language of my earlier poetry. I included images to act as a way of showing comparisons, rather than merely telling the audience I was upset. I ended the poem with my most effective stanza in poetry that I have written thus far:
“Instead, we throw stones at people who love their same gender-
for it’s not love if God says it is a sin.
Instead, we bomb buildings over religious and cultural differences-
for it’s not terrorism if God blesses America.
Why should we “love thy neighbor” when we don’t have to?”
Lying has given me the ability to escape the borderlines of my own sadness and limitations in my writing, allowing me to create characters that encompass what I dare to desire. I want the happy ending, so full of clichés and sweetness that my teeth form cavities just by writing such a piece. Throughout my literary portfolio, I have found an outlet for my imagination in fiction. What I have written has progressively developed in the past few years, due to my better understanding of how to write, and also how to create believable characters. My poetry has maintained a personal level, at best mediocre; but telling the truth has never been easy for me.
