One of the good guys

Meeting you is like finding a unicorn. „What are we even discussing here?“ you keep asking when I try to explain my world to you and you realize we live in the same one. I don’t have to show you my opinions and principles with arguments, you already did the thinking and came to the same conclusions. „We are only discussing to give each other a bit of an echo“, you say. So I stop discussing and start accepting that I don’t have to teach you the basics of my morality because, hey: You are one of the good guys.

The fact that my morality is so adamant is based on dozens before you hurting it, hurting me, harming me, all my life because the basics weren’t clear, and I trust that this won’t happen with you, a bit more every day. But this trust is shaky, full of doubt because people lie, all the time, we are great at deluding each other and ourselves, and that’s why I need time. That hurts you. That disappoints you. Why do I need that long to give you my trust? After all, you are one of the good guys!

So I don’t explain the basics to you but the details, the application of the rules, we all know it from back in school, you already know how it works, now finally do it. You really know the theory, you keep telling me that I can trust you, that you are not like the other guys, that you want me to feel good around you, so many pretty words, and then you fail with the practice, hurt me, overstep my boundaries, rip open old wounds from previous battles all over again, and I keep trying to remember with all my willpower: You are one of the good guys and you would never hurt me.

And because you are one of the good guys I only notice the little stings with the knife when they turn into real cuts and threaten to let me bleed out. But I do notice them. And I warn you. Keep warning you, “You hurt me! You are harming me!” Because you are one of the good guys and you want me to feel good around you and if you need my hints for that you would never hurt me! You just don’t know what you are doing! You are one of the good guys after all!

But you’re not listening to my hints. Try to convince me that I am actually not really bleeding. That it’s not a knife in your hand but a feather that is gently caressing me instead of cutting me up. For a moment I am starting to doubt myself because it fits way better with you actually being one of the good guys, but the cuts and the pain and the blood, I am not making that up, even if decide to not see them. So I growl so you finally start taking me seriously, and you are angry about that because obviously, I am wronging you. How can I growl at you when you don’t actually want to do me any harm? So you push me further into a corner, and it’s narrow, and by now you keep cutting deeper and deeper, again and again, before I finally snap and, out of desperation, bite.

Panting you back off, and now you finally see the cuts too. Feel the weight of the knife in your hand. And you are shocked. What is this damn knife doing in YOUR hand? Why would you have a knife? You would never hurt me, you are one of the good guys!

In the next few months, you will tell yourself and others that I cut myself and blamed you for it because you held the knife. I kept running into it, it was not your fault, and when you just wanted to put the knife away I simply left. You never wanted to hurt me, you are one of the good guys, if only I had given you more chances, if only I had explained to you for a twentieth time how you are hurting me, whatever you need to tell yourself to still be able to believe yourself the good guy. Because as long as you keep telling yourself that vehemently enough, tell it to yourself and everyone around you, as long you are going to be a good guy and won’t have to face the uncomfortable truth that those who are actually the good guys are working on themselves for that. Because those who are actually the good guys don’t have to tell it. They simply have to show it with their actions too.