selfish

Selfishness. That's what I'm struggling with. I have been accused of being selfish. I have been called icy, hard, and volcanically self-contained. 

I've been called cruel, and unforgiving and unavailable. I've been called a butcher with a surgeon's touch—apparently I cleave hearts with practiced precision.

I do not mind being called cruel or clinical in my decision making. I know that I am clinical in my love, and diplomatic with my intimacy. But I do not want to be selfish. There is, I think, a distinction to be made between those of us who love completely, and those of us who want to save some for the next one. 

I'm oscillating between the two—on one hand, I want (I want I want I want) to be all glass and glowing bride; to blush red-gold under someone's gaze like I've swallowed the sun. On the other hand I am afraid of my own transparency—all glass breaks and all that glitters was once whole.

But to save some for the next one is to, inevitably, keep some from the one right now. The force of pulling back doors that say “push” is only going to break them. I don't know what's worse: pulling or pushing away. It all seems to end the same way. Reckless abandon or cautious dispensary—either way, every person I've loved is asking to barter: how much for one night of intimacy? How much for a decade? I'm no less of a prostitute if you pay me in gilded whispers. 

How much of myself do I need to mine to become selfless? If I give you everything, if I excavate my heart strip my body down to the bone, am I then selfless? 

Call me selfish, call me cold. Call me miser and call me shrew. 

Call me crazy, but I'd rather die warrior than martyr.