the people you love most are the people who have the power to hurt you most deeply. and it's better to learn it in fourth grade than to savor the dreams of pure emotions into adulthood and set oneself up to be disappointed over and over because these expectations weren't crushed early enough. it took me a while to drool on command, but i got the hang of it, i learned to withdraw trust at the slightest hint of sadism or manipulation.

the counselors kept saying, 'it's not your fault,' and i believed it until i went home, those tug-of-warzones. the good christians offered to be there for me, but only to stifle what was coming: lie, withdraw, rebel. i developed a strange attachment to my backpack, container of the things that were really mine and not bribes or electrodes for guilt trip shock therapy. i built a perfect world out of daydreams and seceded from the other one. they wanted me to take drugs, but i sold them to kids who would otherwise smoke banana peels.

it was a long war, we lived on rations, or didn't eat at all. battle after battle, it was expensive, hiring mercenaries with their tidy suits and briefcases full of twisted words. a tiny oil-rich nation, nominally sovereign, true ownership contested by two superpowers.. no one asked us what we wanted.

so after eight years i was a war baby in a black sweatshirt. i knew better than to think that others would shelter me. people, no matter how much they claim to love you, should love you, do love you, pursue their own ends first and altruistic ones secondarily. they strive toward their own goals and step on the skulls of those who supported them. if you expect different of human nature, you will find people unnecessarily ugly. better to figure it out young, when things hurt worse anyway.

i am proud of the lessons i learned from my parents.