Sup3rnality

If you break me down, strip all the layers that build me up and buffer harm from touching vulnerable skin, there will be nothing left but bone. Just the make-up of my being, but none of the substance.

I am the parts of my life that brought me to this bend in the road. Every single fiber that knits itself together with this bigger picture is the essence of what I really am. There is no use trying to digest me whole if you could not appreciate the details. The patch of red on my cheeks, the brown shade of my hair, the scars on my face, the burn on my right arm, the lines on my palms, the spots on my shoulders... These are what I am made of, and if you plan to perfect it, you'll find that I won't be standing there as the mist clears.

My ego is what makes me me. I am built on it. Layered and coated by the hurt that pained me as I passed along in this existence. It is the scar tissue that healed itself time and time again to create an armor of webbed defenses. Take that away, and I stand as only a shadow of who I am.

Me. My confidence. My knowledge. My wit. My humour. My sympathy. My empathy. My love. My friendship. My intelligence. My thoughts. My everything... is built on the basis of my ego. I grew up being constantly criticized by my peers and by people whom I thought would know me better than that. Hurt as I was, I always knew I was better than that. And as much as I bled inside, I let it slide and heal over. I did not, no, could not let them beat me down and leave me in the dirt.

So I took the hurt and molded it into sympathy for the lessers. I took the pain and made it into insight and knowledge for things people would never understand. I took the accusations and turned them into love and trust. I took the jeers and developed my internal beauty. I took all the bad, and made it to good. It fed my ego. For without my belief in my superiority, I would have never have gotten far.

As years pass me by, I learned not to take crap from people. I developed an intense hatred and apprehension towards anyone who wanted to break me down, who wanted to humiliate me into submission, who wanted to shame me into compliance. No one could tell me I'm not good enough. No one. Cos I am not, and you cannot tell me otherwise. You can try, but I would not listen.

I am Superego. And you are?

Do not ask me if breaking my ego is what it takes to make me see reason, what it would take to see my errors, feel ashamed and worthless and drive me to do better to impress. This is not boot camp. This is no Full Metal Jacket. Breaking down and humiliating one's pride does not make for reverse psychology that will put me back on track. That is not how it works. Not with me anyhow.

You take down my ego, and you'll see every talent you ever thought I had stripped away. I'll be left with nothing. Whatever you thought I had would be gone. Whatever you thought I could do would have been raped away together with my armour. I would be nothing. Pointless. Meaningless. You would be throwing away all that I work for by taking my ego away from me.

So let me be. If this wasn't meant to be, let it be on my terms. Let me triumph in failure. Let me be. Let me see how this goes. Let me see how far I go. And if I'm lucky, I might join you all on the other side. If not, then I'll leave before the tide comes in.

Love,
Hazlin