Flaw Salad

“Sometimes I’m the worst,” I say, and concern overtakes his face.

“Have you been the worst with me?”

“No.” Maybe if I had, I might still be a good person. I might not be so bad. But he’s seen so little. He’s really seen nothing at all.

“What do you do when you’re the worst?”

Suddenly my mind is ablaze with sins of the past. My darkest cruelties and most sinister proclivities vie for position on a list that will not form. They become, instead, a tornado, a clanging thundercloud, a storm.

How can you tell someone who you’ve been when you can’t believe it’s who you are? Is it possible to be more than your past?

My ugly heart—my frightened, impulsive, animal heart—wants to punish. It feels the wrongs committed against me, and it tries to turn them around. It makes me weak, the victim, a helpless bird, and it forces perpetrators to face my bleeding wounds. “Look what you’ve done! Look at your work! Are you proud?” Is that really me?

I fight against myself. Like a cartoon cleaved in two, I draw a sword and thrash, thrash, thrash the blacker half. He is cunning. He melts and oozes and hides around corners, wielding magic power and acting from unseen crevices with unknown motives. Still, I hunt. Still, I grapple. Still, I attack. This monster cannot abide.

Will the boy understand if I tell him here in the sheets? Will he run? Will he be afraid?

For a brief moment, I imagine us hunting together because I think he probably has a monster, too, and isn’t two-on-two better than one-on-one? I imagine us with our weapons, smiling at each other and slinking down alleys, searching, calling, “Over here! Over here! I think I found a trace!” In that fleeting second, I consider taking his hand and asking his help.

I look back at him looking at me, his open eyes alert, waiting, and I say, “I can’t tell you that.” His lips close to a frown. I lay my head on his chest, and we breathe in silence for a while.