I can't believe I'm writing this. I mean, I never figured myself to be the author type, but now that I think about it, I have no other place to turn to but a blank sheet of notebook paper.

The air here is so clean, nothing like it is in the city. That's where I grew up ... in the city. New York City, the place where you realize that just when you think life isn't fair, you discover it's actually worse than that.

I'm sitting here on a stretching field of tall, green grass. My notebook is in one hand, a pencil in the other, and my girlfriend quietly sleeping on my chest.

It's so peaceful here. So "serene" as my dad would say. I guess you could call him my dad. He raised me, yet still had enough time to beat me and neglect me. I still call him my dad, although he's not the one who helped make me. That was some other guy.

That is really the reason why I ran away; to get away from him. That jerk. I should have done it sooner, but here I am, sixteen, and I'm a runaway.

I have no idea where I'm going with this. Maybe I should just tell you it from the beginning. But who are YOU? YOU are no one. Nobody will ever read this book. Maybe in a dozen years or so, if I ever get married, my wife and/or I will stumble across this book and laugh at the troubled life of your average teenager. But I can't sleep. What else is there for me to do? Smoke the grass? Believe me, I've done enough of that in my life.

My mom once said to me, right before she died, "Life is like a game of chess; it's hard, it's confusing, it's long, but never drop your king and give up." Well, I feel like my king has fallen, and I'm an innocent, little pawn looking for a leader.