STOPPING A GARDEN HOSE WITH YOUR THUMB The Narcissist Cookbook

[Spoken]
So I kissed that person I've been talking to
You know
The one I've been mildly crushing on
On and off
For half a decade
And it felt
Strange
Not the kiss
The kiss was great
I mean, it felt strange to know that it was okay
That I didn't need to choose between this thing that we have
And what this other thing might be
I could just relax and take things easy
As much as I'm ever capable of either of those things, anyway
Drift wherever this strange new breeze might take me

And you know me
I feel, at any given time, tuggеd in all directions at once
That is, if anything can be thus dеscribed, my defining quality
But I spent years pathologising that very thing
Listening with rapt attention when the world told me I was disgusting
Like a child listening to a bedtime story
And you know I don't even really think I mean that metaphorically
We really do make a point of teaching kids that there is precisely one person to be
One way to live
Straight
Cis
Overworked
And monogamous
Anything else is in some way less
And so I learned, as a lot of people like me did, that it was better to hide and to lie and pretend
Than to express ourselves honestly
This approach was actively encouraged, for fucks sake
As if those habits have ever once produced a single happy or healthy individual in the history of our species
It's like trying to fucking shut off a—a garden hose by clamping your thumb over the end
It seems to work for about half a second
And then what had been a steady stream becomes a dozen water jets shooting everywhere
And you can't control it
And you get super fucking wet
And actually, you know what?
That metaphor got away from me a little bit