“We have a moral imperative to keep up the search for something better than mutually assured destruction.”

James D. Watkins

We were born out of something strange. There was a mutual pain, a mutual pain-deliverance. We came together because neither of us could have the one we really wanted, and we could wallow in the devastation of that together. It felt good to touch you because it was almost like touching him – I think you felt the same. It shattered me to know that no matter what we did, we never could have been enough for each other. It frustrated us both, to look at each other and need something more. To need him. When he hurt us, there was a softer version of him waiting within each other. We could touch this version, hold this version, tell the truth to this version, eat this version whole and not get a stomach ache. And even though he was the reason we did anything together from our origin, the blinding pain of his actions the blight of our lives, I don’t think we could have loved each other without him. The pain he inflicted on us was crucial to our stability. His neglect was the foundational rock of our city. We would have crumbled apart if he did not inflict the wounds we gathered around to lick clean. He did leave, and we did crumble.

These are old pains, years old, and I can no longer feel the blood dripping from the cut. But sometimes when I am feeling alone, I will run my hand across the raised scar left behind and remember that I was not always on my own.