There’s a super awkward introduction to a paragraph right here. All the sentences are about the same length and rhythm. Instead of a story its some explosition about itself. Even by the third sentence I bet your eyes are skimming. They’ve already picked up the question marks at the end haven’t they? Is there any reason to introduce the story like this?

Breathe,

Inherently, I hear that with a comma. It’s a pause, not a stop, not an end; it serves a purpose that can’t be upheld by, say, the semicolon. Could you imagine? Inherently; I hear that with a comma. It’s a pause; not a stop; not an end; it serves a purpose that…. you get the point. The first paragraph doesn’t have any pauses. Hardly any run-ons because of it, its just that there’s only ever a stop.

Exposition

What I’m doing right now is telling you about the story and about myself. You maybe haven’t gotten to that point yet, but hey, maybe you have. Maybe you’re rereading. That’s a skill I don’t have. I do have some skill with words, usually making jokes and puns with them. Like how up there, in the first paragraph--not the header for this one--I said “explosition.” Did you catch that before? I did immediately, but that’s what word processors do nowadays. Red line under it like people used to get in school (I never did. I don’t think my English teachers liked doing that, at least not to my papers.) So lets go over this a different way…

Breathe,

I don’t got pauses in my life. No way nuh uh no sirree. I speak fast ‘cause there’s no room for commas when I’m talking. I stop when I have to and half the time its a hard plummet to running out of breath. I run into quick crashes, show-stopping intrusions, and the hard-stops that happen when a teacher hands you back a paper that just says “garbage” at the top. In ballpoint blue, not even red. Or squiggly. I don’t pause and smell some roses or plan ahead more than I have to. I stop when my perspective is shattered about everything from the beginning of everything I thought I knew.

Exposition

It’s right there in the third sentence, a little L, changing a boring literary term--often indicating the boring paths someone chooses to meander through before or during the Good Stuff--into something a bit more reminiscent of an explosion than a story outline. I’m living in that little L. That whole paragraph, skipping through it, think you got it all figured out, and now I, at least, keep going back to it. Are there more mistakes? Well, yea. But that’s what I’d say is The Big One. The first one. The one with that familiar ol’ red squiggly under it. I hadn’t thought that much about it before, but now I can’t stop thinking about it.

I can’t stop thinking about my mom.