On the Nature of Being Terrible.

You know when you say to someone, "I'm such a terrible person?"

You don't say that without meaning, or merit. It's not an exaggeration, a hyperbole or anything. It's fact; cold, brutal, cutting fact.

Because I am a terrible person. I lie, I cheat, I tear people apart when they give me the chance. I'm so defined by paradoxes. I believe in love more than anything in the world because it is the only thing keeping my life together. And somehow I can love everyone and yet hate them, hate every bit of their personality. I can hate how they raise their eyebrows or the way the emphasize certain words.

And of course there are my loving friends, and their responses. "That doesn't make you a terrible person," or "You're not," or even just "Shut up."

Sometimes I just want them to say, "Yes. you are."

I want them to set me on fire, burn everything around me.
I want to stop being terrible, and I want them to see how terrible I am.