Perhaps it victimizes me to admit that I am expertly betrayed. Easily taken advantage of. I am not a martyr. I am The Devil’s Professional Advocate. I will put myself in your shoes till my flesh melts with the soles. And in these trappings not made for me, my clumsy and stumbling gait walks me into gaping pits of disillusion. Bear traps set in a forest by those who know I will stop to admire the leaves and search for beetles on their backs who need rescuing. I suppose that I owe my survival to a magic trick I learned (earned?) when I was young:

“Leave your body, and go somewhere else.”

I became such a skilled dis-associator that I split in two. Peel myself straight down the middle like the plastic backing of a bandaid. Astral project into a timeline where I haven’t made whatever grave error in character judgement has landed me in my terrible predicament. I have been asked 100 times what the difference is between Halsey and Ashley and I have never answered honestly. The truth is that I built her, as a child, to protect the tender core that lies beneath. In a confusing chain of events, my maladaptive daydream became my full time reality. My armor can walk and talk and they look just like me. But you can’t hurt us anymore,

Because one of us is not real.

March 26th, 2023