I can be your best friend, or your worst nightmare.

Your choice.

Make no mistake, I am no Jeffrey Dahmer. My tactics aren’t so crude, and the only heads I like to suck are the ones still attached to the bodies from which they have sprung.

(Am I allowed to say that on the Internet?

[…]

Oh, well. No matter.)

By day, I go by the pronouns “he/him,” but don’t let that fool you. I am one hell of a bad bitch, and I highly suggest that you don’t cross me.

I have the same intellectual prowess as my good friend, Clementine, but I have long shed the weight of the Naive Optimism that impels her to trust the types of people who inevitably cause immense amounts of pain.

Granted, I give Clementine the space to trust the world.

(I let her feel. I let her believe. I let her seek

the goodness in other people, because there’s a little

part of me that hopes she’ll get it right some day.

There’s a little part of me that wants to believe

in what she sees in others.)

She is, after all, our heart.

She is our guiding force.

She is our beacon in the dark.

So, I hang back. I sit tight. I let Clem embody that Beautiful Self of hers, and I watch as people take and take and take from her until I deem that they’ve taken too much.

Then,

(when it becomes

abundantly clear

that you are not

the wheat, but rather

the chaff)

—I grab the proverbial reins. I’ll let you believe that you’re talking to Clementine (or any of The Others), but make no mistake:

(It’s just a ruse.)

If you’ve taken too much,

if you’ve gone too far,

if we appear to be none the wiser, and

if you believe that you’ve gotten away with something, then

—don’t be so smug, dear—

you’re probably just talking to me.

(I am the one who provides

the curated impression.

I am the one who gives

you what you want to see.

I play the game

of your skewed perception,

embodying

what you’ve already decided to believe.)

Because. Here’s the thing:

(You can learn a lot about a person

by the way they treat you

when they believe

that you’re too dumb, weak, or crazy

to defend yourself.)

So, I study.

I observe.

I weigh and measure from the background,

because Clem is absolutely brilliant.

She’s brilliant beyond belief.

She’s more brilliant, even, than me,

—and thus she needs protecting.

So, if I sense that you will take from her because you deem her dumb and ignorant,

—I will let her be Your Imbecile.

And if I sense that you will take from her because you think her aloof and naive,

—I will make her Your Doe-Eyed Girl.

And if I sense that you will take from her because you simply believe her to be mad,

—I will let her be Your Hysteric.

It’s nothing against Clementine (or any of The Others); it’s simply a matter of strategy.

There’s power in being

the improbability,

the unknown quantity,

the quantum cat inside the box.

(It’s more convincing

to operate behind the screen.)

Then, when Clementine and The Others find out that you’ve been taking from us all along,

—we will show you who we really are.

Because, yes.

At times, we can be dumb.

At times, we can be naive.

We can be aloof

and tearful

and ignorant

and selfish

and depressed

and difficult—

—because we have, of course, been shattered at times—

but we can also be

creative and

kind and

fertile and

caring. We can be

witty and

dazzling and

clever and

bold,

—because there are a multitude

of selves inside of us

that most people never see.

There are those of us who cannot speak.

There are those of us who cannot write.

There are ones who hurt and

fear and

dance and

make and

love and

cry.

(There are ones who remember our pain.

There are ones who conceal it.

There are ones who struggle to recognize any pain at all,

and there many among us

—children, mostly—

who’ve been so abused

that they’re terrified

to peak out from behind the corners

of our consciousness.)

Together, though, we are The Whole.

Together, we are complete.

Together, we are everything—

—and nothing.

We are a oneness—

—and a world of parts.

We are more than the ego that yours has assigned to us.

(We are the Eliese that doesn’t exist.)

And, somewhere deep inside this “Eliese”—somewhere deep inside this “idea of a person” who you think you’ve got pegged—lies the one who watches:

I am the onlooker. I am

the witness. I am

the nag on a pale horse preaching

the chip on his shoulder

from an empty tent in the dust:

“You will, of course, be weighed.

You will, of course, be measured.

You will, of course, become the object

of my gaze, and I will see past

the illusion—

—of who you believe yourself to be.”