These Are My Confessions

So... *teeth sucking*

Let's say- *cough*

Well... *nervous laugh* Yeah.

*beat*

Let's say... you know me.

*beat*

Let's say you even know me... well.

*inhale cigarette smoke*

Let's say... we hang out... all the time.

We talk about... everything.

I'm my usual no-holds-barred self with you... and our repoire... is... awesome.

*inhale cigarette smoke*

Still. *cough*

It stands.

The truth, I mean.

*beat*

You haven't seen all of me until you've seen all of me.

*inhale cigarette smoke*

And you haven't seen all of me until you've seen the worst of me.

*stubs out cigarette*

So here's the worst of me: the parts that any normal person would hide from the people who don't need to see them.

The parts that detract from the up-right, morally-gray-but-ultimately-worthwhile-and-almost-wholesome character that I've presented thus far in our relationship.

The parts that I allude to all the time but you've never been privy to.

The side of me who will not hesitate to break a man's heart while his father figure is dying of cancer and he's trying the best to show me his love.

The side of me who will stand someone up just because... or because I haven't yet gotten over myself and I'm xenophobic from time to time and everyone feels like a stranger to me.

The side of me who will end life-long friendships because I've outgrown the people I used to tell everything to.

Let me tell you that I can't be depended on.

That I balk at the idea of standing on pedestals because I suffer from vertigo.

(Kundera said it best; it's not the fear of heights but the fear of falling that every vertigo-prone person falls prey to - and I am no exception.)

That I have a severe issue with authority or anything that resembles authority, and I find it difficult to do as I'm asked unless I truly love you.

(And sometimes even when I truly love you, I need to rebel against your love just to prove that you don't own me.)

That I have never known without a doubt that I am my own person, and that I fear being molded by the inverse of expected norms.

(It's like being the jell-o outside of the mold; even if I don't look as expected, I'm still shaped by the mold.)

That I don't know if I do anything right - except for writing. It's the only thing that's ever made sense to me and the only thing that I know without a doubt that I know backwards and forwards and inside out.

That I doubt my goodness all the time and allow myself to act like a bratty, whiny child with anyone who'll let me get away with it - and these people earn my love by putting up with my immaturity.

That I feel sometimes like I deserve time to be a brat because I've been acting grown from the time I was a child, and no one's ever told me how to be an adult or shown me how it's done.

That I constantly bite the hands that feed me because I distrust folks who take it upon themselves to do good by me -

even though I love to do good by others, unexpectedly -

and I was taught that no one does good by me unless they want something in return.

(I try to teach people by example that this isn't true, but sometimes I feel like I'm doing an injustice: it is truth and they need to learn this bitter truth or they'll be taken advantage of and hurt time and time again.)

So many people have wanted to mentor me, take me under their wing, teach me, mold me, and nothing's ever taken because I don't feel like I can trust anyone's reality. I feel like I don't belong in anyone's world. I always fit so neatly into every role, every lifestyle, every niche and opportunity granted me. I've always fit and excelled so easily: I must be fake, or the situations presented me must be fake.

So many people have wanted me to mentor them, take them under my wing, teach them, mold them, but I always feel like I fail them. I don't know anything. I wish I did.

So I act out. I drink too much. I love too hard. I sleep around. And I lie through my teeth (poorly but effectively) when someone who wants to grow old with me asks if I love them. I lie through my teeth when I say that I want to see other people; I lie through my teeth when I say that I love them but I don't want to end up with them; I lie through my teeth when I say there's a chance for us; I lie through my teeth when I say that there's no chance for us.

The truth is, everything I say is a lie because I don't know anything. Nothing feels true and nothing feels real and when I want to feel a truth, something - loss, regret, pain, shame - stabs me straight in the spine and it feels real.

I am a masochist because it is the only way I feel alive. I am a teacher by default - because my life choices show a path that so many are interested by. And I don't know if, tomorrow, I'll disappoint you or make you proud. I don't know myself that well.

I just know that I'll do everything in my power to make sure that tomorrow happens.

I just know that my unremarkable life has been punctuated by the palpable power of people who go about living, loving, leaving the best way they know how.

It's pure poetry.