After Loving Something True

You can’t lie to yourself after loving something true. 

Go ahead and try and see what happens to you.

Feel your soul ache, as if it is getting pulled in two.

Lose the identity you so desperately cling to—

your idea of your ‘genuine self’. 

Shed that mask and ask why nothing feels the same to you anymore.

Those lies you used to craft yourself don’t fit your life now. 

Everything within will inevitably collapse.

There is no getting the past back.

You can’t lie to yourself after having yourself mirrored back to you by someone you respected. 

You can’t unsee the dark things in your soul after someone's light has illuminated them.

You can’t hide from your monsters after they cut you down. 

Feel your wounds.

You know these words are true. 

Feel your soul ache, as if it is getting pulled in two.

Feel the impending doom that will hit you soon if you continue to lie to yourself. 

It is impossible to speak one single truth when your whole being is tainted by the lies you tell yourself. 

You can’t lie to yourself after loving something true and someone once truly loved you. 

When someone with a pure heart shows you how sweet and dark you are, you can’t ignore it anymore. 

The truth is relentless and whatever we repress will inevitably manifest, usually creating a much bigger mess for us in the future.

If you do have a genuine self somewhere inside of your soul, it will rage against the little lies you tell yourself to make yourself feel better about yourself. 

Anxiety will attack in the aftermath of finally dropping the mask. 

Depression takes hold, and you don’t feel at home in your own skin. You are alone.

If you continue to lie to yourself, you will never be able to respect yourself. This will make loving yourself impossible—which makes loving anyone else insincere. 

Look yourself in the eyes and recognize the disguise. 

See the lies; if you truly look without any fear or denial, the lies will be as clear as the lines on your face are. 

Stop and stare. Become self-aware. And ask yourself, 

what do you actually see now that you’ve loved something true? Who are you turning into?

My favorite author, in my all-time favorite book, said this,

“Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man (or woman) who lies to himself (or herself) and listens to his/her own lie comes to a point where he/she does not discern any truth either in himself/herself or anywhere around him/her, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself/herself and others. Not respecting anyone, he/she ceases to love, and having no love, he/she gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures in order to occupy and amuse himself/herself, and in his/her vices reaches complete beastiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and himself/herself. A man (or woman) who lies to himself/herself is often the first to take offense. It sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn't it? And surely he/she knows that no one has offended him/her, and that he/she himself has invented the offense and told lies just for the beauty of it, that he/she has exaggerated for the sake of effect, that he/she has picked up on a word and made a mountain out of a pea—he/she knows all of that, and still he/she is the first to take offense, he/she likes feeling offended, it gives him/her great pleasure, and thus he/she reaches the point of real hostility…”

-Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

There are consequences for loving something true. And the consequence is what you will turn into afterwards.

The person that loves you won't let your soul erode away by the lies you tell yourself. No, they'll care about what you are turning into. They'll protect your potential. They will guard your soul, even if they have to guard it from you.

-CH 4/8/26