Straddling

Figured I should give up something today Struggling, struggled against doing certain things I find natural to me, {doormat shmormat, mistaking pushover for laid-back, John Wayne complex, the sick consensual acceptance about helpfulness, gallantry and chivalry being the sole domain of men, the extra mile is the brown nosing mile, how the honest off-handedness is really false humility: I may suck at what I do but I love doing it, buckets, mate, there are buckets of hypocrisies we're made to live with} working against what I thought then was the pattern of reaction drilled in by years of saying yes or letting people walk all over me Stifled, then, dead-weight, unable to create new things in my head (a tragedy, considering it's all I am) At the other end, discovered a latent skill: knowing exactly what can crack someone's resolve, or of phrasing things for maximum impact--great for fiction, damaging for real-life drama But I have developed mouth guards to make sure I never say them with deliberate intent to hurt (that or a well-developed frontal lobe inhibitor) I slipped once, look where that went So, me on some floating platform, here to your left: sickening bubblegum sweetness, campy songs and pigtails, some fair-weather friends and blind obeeedience There to your right: just the truth, but no friends I don't don't don't don't like both places Freaking tightrope *flailing* watch me I'm going fucking Buddhist