as birds all peck my liver to marzipan.

i should explain further, perhaps. this is more than simply avoiding painful stimuli, although i would argue that the human brain is capable of sensing pain for no other reason than that we are meant to learn from it. we are meant to learn what not to do or how to avoid it or move with it or where our limits are or where they could be, and that, perhaps doing the same painful thing over and over again, if one gets no enjoyment from it, or if it serves no higher purpose, might be stupid.

no. i am more certain now that it is not simply that love hurts when it ends. it is that i do not like the experience of being in love. i am realizing that it is very similar to the feeling i have when i am called miss or when i have sex with a straight boy or with anyone too strictly gendered or when i find myself in a monogamous relationship. i am capable of doing all of these things. i can manage it. a few times out of every thirty, i might even like it. but it does not fit. it is not right. it is not what i want.

there are things that it has taken me every relationship i've yet had to learn. for instance, besides the fact that i think that i am a bit happier when i am with more than one person at a time, it has never yet failed. i hurt every partner with whom i've ever been in a monogamous relationship. when i was younger, this generally took the form of my cheating on people a lot. as a result, i thought the solution was to not cheat on people anymore. easy enough. but this time it worked differently. although the real issue was her complete inability to define boundaries, and the fact that she sometimes actually lied to me when i'd ask her questions about what was ok and what was not, the fact remains that megan dumped me for fucking her too much. i am a big kid; i'm done feeling broken or sick because of how much i want, if i ever really did feel that way. and i have been told that people do exist who want as much as i do. and i even believe, and hope, and fitfully pray that people do exist who could, perhaps, surpass me, and maybe even wear me out. but i've yet to be with anyone who displayed any evidence of this. so, the lesson that i've gathered from this thus far is that perhaps it is actually wrong to place any human being in the position of trying to keep up with me. there are logistical problems with this, obviously, as just now i can't seem to convince anyone in whom i'm really interested to do me, let alone two or nine of them. (which brings up an (un)interesting interjection: i'm being really particular all of a sudden. when the fuck did that start? and why now? god i'm so weird.)

that was only really relevant here as it compares to this: it has never yet failed. i have been hurt by every partner with whom i've ever been in an exclusive, emotionally intense relationship. there are, believe it or not, dear readers, ways in which i am a private person. there are a great many things that i do not like to say out loud, that i do not like to explain fully. and so it sometimes seems easier to only do this with one person. but i can never be comfortable being that open, being so very exposed. i do not want any one person to be allowed to see everything that is in my head and in my heart. i am happiest when it is spread out a bit, when i can say what i must without burdening anyone or feeling too much like i've been pinned and mounted.

i do not fear pain. i work with it, and i explore it, and i play with it, and i often find it useful. but i also know when to put it down. sometimes this fool knows when to scream back at the hurricane, and also when to come in out of the rain.