Can you look at a person and know them?

If you hear them talk, does that mean that you know them, then?

Should I tell you my backstory?

Will that make me more real?

I’ll listen and agree with you as you do me

Forging connections both social and emotional

But does that mean that you know me?

I choose what I tell you

As you choose what you show

I project the best of myself

Omitting all of the parts that will make you dislike me

I leave out the darkness that makes me dislike myself

So to you now, I’m funny

A little bit kooky

Kind of different

I’m caring to you because I know that will make you want me around you

But I don’t know where the truth in that begins or ends

I think I’ve figured out the right amount to show,

Just to get by, you know?

But what if I wanted to do more than get by?

What if I wanted to live a complete lie?

Could I make you buy into it?

If I stand in front of you and soothe your anxieties

Rub a salve over your insecurities and promise you that I’ll make them go away will you trust me?

Because I said it, will you trust me?

Or perhaps it’s something else you want.

A kindred kind of deception

Equally beneficial in its sinister end

So I pander to your greed in mutuality

As the fruits of deception grow all too easily

Tell me your fears and I will become your protector

Tell me your needs and I will be your provider

Give to me your sorrow because I am now a savior

Feed into my greed and I will lead you to destruction

Because I know you and I despise you

You do not equal me, because I have manipulated you

And you will serve me

This place is mine and you gave it to me

I wanted to see if I could and you let me

You joined in your own ruin willingly

So how can I respect you?

You’ve made it impossible for me to love you

You’ve forced my hand by putting me here and bound me to the lies that come

I started this, but you are the one that has forced it to go on

Cementing a walkway of despair and laying it down in front of us

Dragging the unwilling along for the agonizingly long walk of pain

You don’t want this anymore than I do

So at what point do we go back to what is actually true?

I never cared about you

I bludgeoned you in the face with who I am and yet still you clung to me cravenly

Like a nursing baby

Knowing nothing of personal boundary

I will inevitably abandon you

To fend for yourself

When you are most in need

Desperate dependency does not appeal to my greed

Now do you know me?

Or do you need to see more?

How bad does this thing here need to get, because I can go there

I can lead you to that bottomless regret

We’ve come this far

The least I can do now is leave a damning mark

Seer my brand into your wretched skin

The cold poison of knowing will start to sink in

Do I take you to the brink of death and destruction?

The nuclear codes await my instruction

Where would you have me go from here?

So you do still think you have some kind of a say?

The pieces are all laid out on the board now, my friend

This is, of course, the beginning of the end