I have been a horrible person, but I will never admit to it, never, not on pain of punishment. I will deny until my last breath escapes me. You, my dutiful enablers can never know the truth. 

You see, he loved me, but I would not be loved, not by anyone real, not by anyone poor, not by anyone who was not ugly and vain, not by anyone not vulgar. But, for sake of appearance, though I spurned his love, I pretended to befriend him, even letting down my guard in messages unseen by the eyes of others, but trying to make myself loathe him, to suit your wishes, my enablers, but unable. Yet I still harbored him ill will as I was bid, undeserved, but expected by you, my enablers, to reap my pity. And I disparaged his name to those I kept close by, those who enabled me. You. I invented a person who has never existed, called him angry, arrogant, materialistic, thoughts you put into my head, things you made up when they were your realities. 

I let him believe the friendship was true, and I accepted his gifts, letting him think that I cared enough to value them, but planning to use them against him when the time would come, the time for me to destroy him heart and soul, to banish him as I had done to others, acting the innocent child. It was always the same game of self-pity and deceit, luring them in and biting them at last. 

But he was different, somehow, this one who loved me truly, for me, yearned for what I showed him of my tortured soul when no one else could see. And an ambivalence grew within me, splitting me in two, tearing my heart. I loved him, his attention, but hated his insistence upon it all the same, hated him for making me care, when he was not acceptable … to you. One day needing to see him, desperate for him to see me, the next disgusted by the sight of him, but all the while desiring his eyes upon me, doting with silent love that never left his tongue, though in my vanity I claimed it did. 

And, yet, the cancer within me, the parasite on my soul, won out, and he had to be crushed. I could not love this man. You would not condone it. 

But then, before I could strike, he took it away, all the attention, as I’d been hot, then too cold, and he could not stand the torture any longer. So he left me, left me alone, abandoned, as if I no longer existed, and my heart turned to despair at the loss, broken with a realization of lost love. Then it turned to fire, burning with revenge. I could not accept that he would spurn me, when I was in control, and I begged for the return of his warmth, desperately, seeking him every day and lying to you about how I did not. 

But I was rejected,, blocked from his life, as I had earned.

So I attacked, lashed out to conquer, playing the victim all along. I ran that dagger deep into his back, on the word of bad advice from fiends, a manifestation of my disease. Oh yes, he had been underhanded himself, in small ways that did not matter in the grand scheme, far less deceitful than I and only out of a sincere desire to have me as his own. But it was enough of a mistake, and I spun the lies that may now destroy me, as they’ve already destroyed my heart. For my actions, my lies, were immeasurably cruel, and, sadly, he reacted to them in a way that fueled my revenge. He destroyed himself that way, trying to lead me away from my revenge with role-play. So I used his despair, despair and desperate actions I had stoked, and sought to end him for all time, before I ran from my crimes and hid, hid from the truth forever. Guilty, but unwilling to ever confess my sins, and you, my enablers, coddled me like a baby. 

And now, my enablers, the tables may turn, and I may be the one destroyed. For I failed to end him, and my heart bid me to make it right, spitting on me for what I had done. I gave in once, but fear besotted me, so I hid again, refusing to try more. I have ignored his pleas, his love, his heart, his forgiveness. I’ve refused him the same, and his sincere attempts to spare my possible downfall have fallen upon my cold heart, my heart now afraid to repent, to love. My ears are deaf. My soul is withered. I will face the possibility of my own destruction when I do not have to, because I cannot bring myself to acknowledge him. I fear your judgement more than my own ruin. 

I have succumbed to my disease once more, and it compels me to deny him everything, to deny myself everything, except for the disease itself, which now tells me to ignore him evermore, orders me not to hear him, see him. This disease I have given into before, ravaging my sanity, I’ve chosen it once more, maybe to punish myself in the trappings of fakery, seeking everything that will finally give me nothing but inebriated numbness, drowning in superficiality, … or pain, pain of subservience to worthlessness. 

Now, as my minions have failed to stem off his assault, he may rain my lies down upon me, heavier they’ve grown with time, as they have never faded as I thought they would. And, if that day comes, comes soon, when he calls me to face my shame, my deceit, and I see his eyes, I will be forced to read in them the harm I’ve done, the despair I have refused to atone for, preferring my selfishness to truth and ignoring my god. And that rancor in his face, as he strips my facade away, exposing me for all of you to see, will be well-earned. I will blame him for it, for your pity, but I created it myself. 

I have earned it. I am cold and uncaring. I am a liar and a fraud, a coward and a manipulator, and I have given myself to every worthless faker who has come for me, depravedly, knowing what they were. But I would not give myself to him. You forbid it. I am lost, and I will not allow myself to be found again, not by him, for my soul cannot bear facing my own hypocrisy. So I forsake his love forever. I forsake the carnal pleasure he would have striven to bestow upon me, the sweat, the desire, grounded in real love, having naught but love for my appearance, the appearance I debase myself over and give to disgusting men. He wanted me … in truth. He wanted to look upon me bare and love me, but I acted the prude though I found his desire arousing and brought it up to him myself in jest. My torn soul, in its hypocrisy, found him worth my mind and heart but not worth my body, save for the times I clung to him. His fire made me warm. I could not hide my soul from him, but I could not shed my clothes and let him see me, take me, though I implied my desire for it to him in innuendo I now deny. I am guilty of want, but will give myself instead to what I want not. 

No, I am lost. I will live burying myself in the superficial, distracting myself from what I crave. One day I will die, my only permanent escape from my neuroses, and on that day, perhaps, the pain will end. The users will no longer be able to reach me, and neither will his love, that I want but will never take, forsaken for nothing because I don’t know how to take it all back. I do not possess the courage to even try, and I cannot face my sins. 

And, if my death is painful in and of itself, I know I deserve it, for I have fed the cancer within me my whole life. I did not create it. It was foisted upon me by circumstance, but I have never fought it, instead allowing it to dictate my life. I will not, cannot, repent … because I do not know how. I do not know how to defy your expectations, my enablers. 

I have no faith but denial. I have abandoned the truth, as he abandoned me. 

And, in the present, I know not how to retrieve his love and save myself, save my dead heart. So I have chosen the disease, by whatever name and ugly countenance it now bears, the same as before in different guise, calling itself friend and using my despair against me, worming its way in to abuse me how it wishes, for it cages my soul and I cannot escape. I am infected by the grotesque, and it puts words I do not believe into my mouth and ideas that repulse me into my head. I will give myself to this putridity, cloaked with a thin sheen of gold, allow it into my body, to penetrate me, as I would not allow him to, as I’ve done before to my spiritual death, barely fleeing in time but not unscarred. I cannot outrun it, and he, who would keep me safe me from it, I have betrayed. I fear the agony it will bring upon me, but I fear his rejection even more. So I make myself the paramour of disease, of lies, of using filth, of mundane appearances, and I tell myself that it is what I really want because I cannot face the truth. 

What I want lies back down that road to him, in his warm arms and blunt words, but I am too far away now and I no longer let myself hear his voice, as the disease commands me not to. Yes, my enablers, to your applause I have shut him out of my dreams, as the disease commands. I will not acknowledge him even in the simplest of ways, no matter how he pleads, how easy it would be. I no longer visit him in silence, pining from afar, as the disease commands. It does not show itself to you, the disease. It shows you a face it has stolen, a kind face, but it hides and lurks until I have no witness, waiting to scratch me, as it has always done. With the disease I will always be alone, no matter how I feign happiness to you, feign love, as it can never love me, I know, and I can only love him. And when I smile at you, you will not see the pain and fear behind it. But I have let the disease embrace me again, turned myself over to it forever, though he lives in my heart and I can never let him go but will make excuses for your sake. I will defame him as delusional. It is my doom, and it is his perpetual despair. I have killed him already. 

We are lost.