But the walls stay, the roof remains strong and immovable, and we can only pray that if these rooms have memories, they are not ours.
It is easier to admit it than to allow it to be defined on someone else’s terms.
I disagree.
It is much easier to live the lie; it is much easier to live on someone else’s terms. This is an avenue of conversation I once would have pursued ruthlessly, as I had in the academy. We are nothing if not the opinions of others, I might say.
But now I know better.
Now I know that most of us are nothing no matter what we do, no matter how we act, no matter what we own up to.
This, however, is the fault I have inherited from my father. I do not possess the true extent of self-reflection she does. I cannot step back from myself and say, as one does hard facts, exactly who and what I am. My father was a narcissist. So am I, although my hamartia is being unable to recognize. Instead, I feel as if I've found a kindred spirit; instead, I feel briefly as if she understands the depth of my suffering.
My suffering that is beyond the suffering of others.
My unerring belief in one’s rightness. Of course I am right. Of course I find a semblance of my pain in her lack thereof, in her truly apathetic appraisal of life. We are the same, because my pain is greater; we are the same, because my pain recognizes itself in the degrees of everyone else’s life.
Yet, if I were asked, I would say: mine is the greater and my knowledge is more. Not, this is who I am and this is why.
(The only area where her clipped appraisal of me is not quite correct is in regards of her brother—
I do not care for Adonai because he reminds me of my old lover.
I care for her brother as one cares for a broken winged bird. As one cares for something they believe they can save; and in the saving, feel like god.
Perhaps she would know: that is the difference, between a narcissist and a sociopath.
Where one dissects bodies to analyze what is within them, another dissects solely to bring them back to life and say, I saved you and now am a god.
Yes. I am a god—who isn’t, to the things they can save? Just momentarily. Just long enough to feel as if you are everything—)
And anyways, her expression is quiet; and anyways, she does not reveal the thoughts that shift beneath the surface of her face like the quiet mechanisms of a clock. The only thing I would like is to be normal.
I make a dissatisfied noise, in the back of my throat. Just like that, she has lost my intrigue. She has become no different from the rest.
But then: “What is normal, Ruth?”
I might not have asked it, if I were not a little drunk; if my gaze, and expression, were not darkening like a storm.
And you—who would you be, if you had the choice?
“That’s simple.” I answer. There is something volatile about the way I say it; about the way my lip twists into an almost-sneer.
“Nobody.”
There is an old legend among my people.
Better to be a herdsman of sheep than ruler of all the dead. (Of course, I know I could never have been anyone else; I know that this is my lot, and I never could have been a faceless member of the crowd, of society—)
And so I amend, with a wry twist of my mouth. “Maybe your brother.”
Maybe someone worth saving.
I disagree.
It is much easier to live the lie; it is much easier to live on someone else’s terms. This is an avenue of conversation I once would have pursued ruthlessly, as I had in the academy. We are nothing if not the opinions of others, I might say.
But now I know better.
Now I know that most of us are nothing no matter what we do, no matter how we act, no matter what we own up to.
This, however, is the fault I have inherited from my father. I do not possess the true extent of self-reflection she does. I cannot step back from myself and say, as one does hard facts, exactly who and what I am. My father was a narcissist. So am I, although my hamartia is being unable to recognize. Instead, I feel as if I've found a kindred spirit; instead, I feel briefly as if she understands the depth of my suffering.
My suffering that is beyond the suffering of others.
My unerring belief in one’s rightness. Of course I am right. Of course I find a semblance of my pain in her lack thereof, in her truly apathetic appraisal of life. We are the same, because my pain is greater; we are the same, because my pain recognizes itself in the degrees of everyone else’s life.
Yet, if I were asked, I would say: mine is the greater and my knowledge is more. Not, this is who I am and this is why.
(The only area where her clipped appraisal of me is not quite correct is in regards of her brother—
I do not care for Adonai because he reminds me of my old lover.
I care for her brother as one cares for a broken winged bird. As one cares for something they believe they can save; and in the saving, feel like god.
Perhaps she would know: that is the difference, between a narcissist and a sociopath.
Where one dissects bodies to analyze what is within them, another dissects solely to bring them back to life and say, I saved you and now am a god.
Yes. I am a god—who isn’t, to the things they can save? Just momentarily. Just long enough to feel as if you are everything—)
And anyways, her expression is quiet; and anyways, she does not reveal the thoughts that shift beneath the surface of her face like the quiet mechanisms of a clock. The only thing I would like is to be normal.
I make a dissatisfied noise, in the back of my throat. Just like that, she has lost my intrigue. She has become no different from the rest.
But then: “What is normal, Ruth?”
I might not have asked it, if I were not a little drunk; if my gaze, and expression, were not darkening like a storm.
And you—who would you be, if you had the choice?
“That’s simple.” I answer. There is something volatile about the way I say it; about the way my lip twists into an almost-sneer.
“Nobody.”
There is an old legend among my people.
Better to be a herdsman of sheep than ruler of all the dead. (Of course, I know I could never have been anyone else; I know that this is my lot, and I never could have been a faceless member of the crowd, of society—)
And so I amend, with a wry twist of my mouth. “Maybe your brother.”
Maybe someone worth saving.
« r » | @
