People no longer cease to amaze me in the worst way possible.
Maybe that sounds cynical.
It probably is.
But cynicism is merely optimism after it has been mugged in a dark alley enough times to recognize the footsteps behind it.
There are very few people left who aren’t looking out for themselves first. I have always known this in some quiet way. I just spent too many years pretending otherwise. Giving people the benefit of the doubt as if benefits were something I had an unlimited supply of.
I assumed good intentions.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Eventually, you stop calling it kindness and start wondering if you are simply volunteering to be robbed.
People take.
They take time.
They take patience.
They take forgiveness.
They take the chair at your table and complain about the meal.
Then they stare at you with genuine confusion when you finally remove the chair.
Entitlement is a peculiar disease.
The infected rarely know they have it.
They simply walk around believing the world owes them something because they arrived.
Your attention.
Your forgiveness.
Your money.
Your loyalty.
Your silence.
Your understanding.
Another chance.
And another.
And another.
Until one day there are no chances left.
That is usually when I become the villain.
I have been the villain in more stories than I care to count.
I wear the crown beautifully.
Black velvet.
Heavy silver.
Maybe a few thorns around the edges.
If you are going to crown me for refusing to participate in my own destruction, at least make the damn thing worth wearing.
The strange part is that the people who have crossed me seem to eventually build their own particular version of hell after I leave.
I don’t build it for them.
I don’t have to.
That would require entirely too much effort.
I simply watch from a distance as the architecture begins.
One bad decision becomes another.
One lie requires three more.
One burned bridge becomes an island.
And eventually there they are, standing in the middle of everything they created, wondering why nobody is coming to rescue them.
Sometimes I look back and wonder if they enjoy it.
Maybe hell becomes comfortable when you have lived there long enough.
Maybe misery eventually learns your coffee order.
Maybe chaos becomes familiar enough that peace feels suspicious.
I wouldn’t know.
I moved.
The forwarding address was never provided.
Because eventually I learned that apologies without changed behavior are nothing more than intermissions.
The curtain closes.
Everyone catches their breath.
“I’m sorry.”
The curtain rises.
Same fucking play.
Different night.
I stopped buying tickets.
There is a difference between making a mistake and building a residence inside one.
There is a difference between regret and growth.
There is a difference between saying you understand the boundary and repeatedly checking whether the fence is electric.
It is.
Touch it again.
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, and now we are both standing here looking stupid.
I don’t particularly enjoy looking stupid.
So there probably won’t be a third time.
For years I thought change was the requirement.
It wasn’t.
Growth was.
Change can be temporary.
People change clothes.
Change jobs.
Change relationships.
Change addresses.
Change stories depending on who is listening.
Growth is different.
Growth leaves evidence.
Growth changes how you move through the world.
Growth means the lesson follows you into the next room.
That is what I require now.
Not perfection.
Not obedience.
Not someone becoming exactly what I want.
Growth.
Because we are adults with adult money and adult consequences, and at some point we should probably start acting accordingly.
You cannot keep living like a teenager with a credit card and expect everyone around you to finance the emotional overdraft.
And somehow, without fail, the loudest sermons seem to come from the strangest pulpits.
Morality.
Traditional values.
Honor.
Loyalty.
Respect.
Family.
Beautiful words.
Then you peek behind the curtain and discover the preacher is living like a heathen with Wi-Fi.
That one always gets me.
Don’t hand me a rulebook while you’re actively setting the pages on fire.
At least heathens are honest.
So eventually my answer becomes remarkably simple.
Go find someone who fits you.
Seriously.
There are billions of people wandering around this planet.
Someone, somewhere, will tolerate the thing I won’t.
Someone will live inside the chaos.
Someone will call stagnation stability.
Someone will mistake control for love.
Someone will happily sit beside you while nothing changes.
Go find them.
I mean that without cruelty.
But somehow that sentence makes me the villain too.
Apparently people don’t like being told that they are free to find exactly what they claim to want.
They prefer you become it.
No.
Those who aren’t growing aren’t going.
I stand firmly on that.
You want to remain exactly where you are?
Fine.
There is nothing inherently wrong with standing still.
Rest there.
Build a chair.
Plant a flag.
Put up a mailbox.
Just don’t expect me to move onto the island with you.
Especially when there is no food.
No water.
No shelter.
And absolutely no plan.
Some of us bitches learned how to swim.
That changes everything.
Once you realize you can survive the water, islands stop looking like prisons.
You simply leave.
I need nourishment.
I need hydration.
I need laughter.
I need movement.
I need conversations that go somewhere.
I need people capable of looking at themselves without immediately blaming the mirror.
That last one seems particularly difficult.
No one wants to look into the fucking mirror and consider the possibility that they might be the problem.
Not evil.
Not irredeemable.
Not terrible.
Just wrong.
Sometimes.
Imagine the horror.
The mirror has become the most terrifying object in the modern world because it doesn’t argue.
It simply reflects.
People will fight armies before fighting themselves.
They will rewrite history.
Recruit witnesses.
Build alliances.
Collect screenshots.
Retell stories.
Edit conversations.
Turn themselves into martyrs.
Anything except stand alone beneath the bathroom light and whisper:
Maybe it was me.
It is exhausting.
Especially when you have spent years assuming good intentions.
That assumption has burned me more times than I care to admit.
I used to believe everyone deserved softness until they proved otherwise.
I still believe something close to that.
But softness isn’t stupidity.
Real people don’t become hard because they enjoy hardness.
They become hard where life has repeatedly struck them.
Armor is simply scar tissue with better marketing.
People like me don’t arrive carrying swords.
We arrive carrying flowers.
That’s what everyone forgets.
The sword comes later.
After the flowers have been crushed beneath someone’s boots enough times.
Eventually true colors come out.
Not elegantly.
Not subtly.
More like a bag of Skittles vomiting a rainbow across the sidewalk.
Suddenly every color is there.
Bright.
Sticky.
Impossible to pretend you didn’t see it.
And once I see it, I cannot unsee it.
That is both gift and curse.
Because people like me do not go to war for entertainment.
There are people who wake up looking for battles.
I don’t understand them.
War is expensive.
Even when no money changes hands.
It costs sleep.
Peace.
Time.
Energy.
Pieces of yourself.
So if you want to battle with yourself, please continue.
I won’t be attending.
Fight your demons.
Argue with your reflection.
Burn down your own kingdom if you insist.
Just don’t send the smoke toward mine.
Because the moment you threaten what belongs beneath my protection, something ancient wakes up.
Something quiet.
Something that has been sleeping beneath the floorboards while everyone mistook silence for weakness.
And this is where people make their greatest mistake.
They believe the person standing in front of them stands alone.
Little old me.
One person.
One voice.
One pair of hands.
Until the first horn sounds.
Then something begins moving in the woods.
One person appears.
Then another.
Then another.
People step from places you never knew existed.
Old friends.
Family.
Strangers who remember kindness.
People whose lives were touched when nobody was watching.
People who don’t need explanations because they already know the character of the person standing beside them.
That is the thing about building an empire correctly.
You don’t notice you are building one.
You think you’re just helping people.
Keeping promises.
Showing up.
Answering the phone.
Standing beside someone when there is nothing in it for you.
Giving when nobody is applauding.
Years pass.
Then one day someone declares war on you and discovers the kingdom was populated the entire time.
There are people you should never mess with because you have no idea what stands behind them.
Not money.
Not power.
Not status.
People.
Real ones.
The kind you cannot buy.
The kind who remember.
The kind who show up.
We have entered that hour now.
The air feels different.
The candles along the corridor have gone still although every window is open.
Something is coming.
Or perhaps something has already arrived.
I didn’t ask for war.
That part should be remembered.
I was perfectly content tending the garden behind the castle walls.
I was minding my own business.
Growing things.
Building things.
Laughing.
Living.
But apparently someone mistook peace for surrender.
Someone mistook kindness for permission.
Someone crossed the boundary and looked surprised when the ground changed beneath their feet.
And now I am forced to protect my own.
There are versions of me that disappeared years ago.
The girl who explained herself endlessly.
The woman who gave seventeenth chances.
The person who believed every apology deserved another opening.
They are buried somewhere beneath this castle.
I visit their graves occasionally.
I leave flowers.
I thank them.
Then I return upstairs.
Because this version understands something they never did.
Protection does not require guilt.
When the gates close, they close.
When the line is drawn, it remains.
When the sword leaves its sheath, Satan himself might want to step aside.
Not because I am cruel.
Because I am finished being careless with what I love.
There is a difference.
This empire was not built on the tears of other people.
It was built with my own blood.
Every stone has something underneath it.
A loss.
A lesson.
A betrayal.
A night I thought would never end.
A morning I got up anyway.
People see the castle after it is standing and assume it appeared overnight.
They don’t see the woman carrying stones through the rain.
They don’t see the bleeding hands.
They don’t see the graves beneath the roses.
They only see the walls.
And walls offend people who once benefited from your lack of them.
That is why boundaries make enemies.
They change access.
Suddenly the door that was always open requires a key.
Suddenly forgiveness doesn’t mean admission.
Suddenly history doesn’t grant permanent residency.
Suddenly the villain is standing at the gate.
Crowned.
Calm.
Holding the sword.
And perhaps that is exactly where she was always supposed to be.
Because every kingdom needs someone willing to defend it.
Every story needs a villain.
And history has a funny way of confusing the villain with the person who finally said enough.
So tell the story however you need to tell it.
Make me wicked.
Make me cold.
Tell them I changed.
Tell them I became difficult.
Tell them I abandoned the island.
Tell them I stopped forgiving.
Tell them I drew the sword first if that helps you sleep inside the ruins you created.
I won’t correct you.
I have things to protect.
But remember one thing before you begin telling stories from the grave.
The dead should be careful speaking ill of the living when they are the reason the funeral happened.
Some endings are not tragedies.
Some graves contain things that needed to stay buried.
And somewhere beyond the castle walls, beneath a moon that has watched this story happen a thousand times before, the forest has gone completely silent.
The gates are closed.
The torches are lit.
The people have taken their places.
And the woman everyone insisted on calling the villain stands at the front of an empire built from everything that failed to destroy her.
Sword in hand.
Crown straight.
No tears left to spend.
War it is.
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