I Murderer

People keep telling me lately how much they're going to miss the old me. How they want to have goodbye ceremonies for something I'd be happy to quietly toss in the dumpster. They knew me through the filter of my disguise. A disguise built of bitterness, frustration and regret. I made it so well people befriended this thing, loved this thing, and worse still fell in love with this thing, even after they knew how much of a construct it was. Perhaps they still could not believe it wasn't real. Why after all these decades of selflessness must THIS be what I need for myself? To slam the door on those possibilities just because for almost all of my life I'd never seen myself in the mirror and it was eating my soul?

No one would ask me to be the old me, to play the old songs. They're too smart, too kind too loving to suggest such a thing, but it can't take the look of loss from their eyes, the feeling from their hearts. It makes one consider the question: what the heck is self? The filters are inescapable, both of projection and reception. As much as we try to transcend the physical, the animal self, the physical attraction rests in the details. So I'm killing someone who people cared about. Who people will miss. Who had possibilities, perhaps not as spritually fulfilling for myself, but my joy has always lain in the joy of my loved ones, in that of those around me. Why must I do this? The dichotomy of internal and external needs is heart rending.