#constantly fighting myself cos every single thing has me wanting to throw up my hands and walk the fuck off bc theres bo point

[toytulini]

mental health just straight up plummeting

[vmfx]

A NEW HIGH IN LOW.

Porky started working with us this past September and it only took a couple of days to lose our approval of him. Based on previous experience, he ordered us around and told us what to do with his faux-Italian mafia attitude and his zeppelin frame.

To make himself sound even bigger than he already was, he'd try to validate his importance to us. He bragged of how he was to receive a $2,500,000 windfall right into his bank account from the Chinese Mafia. Once he pulled me over from doing something real important to show me a picture of his Asian stripper ‘girlfriend’ on his smartphone. He also claimed to have 78 traffic tickets and, according to him, “beaten every single one of them” with two thumbs up to himself and a smile. And we’ll never forget when he claimed to have run a five-minute mile ‘in his prime’.

His aims with false credentials finally hit a reality for once. To his credit he snuck up on a shoplifter, grabbed him by his jacket, and handed him over to the store manager for all the market to see. Our hero of the day became the star of the show and expected everything to be handed to him. Sooner or later his front-page legacy wore off ad we all saw him for what he really wasn’t. Everyone was tired of him so he started gunning for our attention when he failed to sell us his alibis. He constantly interrupted our duties by refusing to help us and needled his child-like mentality into us every chance he could. A stand-off with another co-worker almost turned into a fist-fight since Porky loved to be the catty little socialite princess who always had to be cute and say something about everything.

I already deemed him a lost hope. He came for me and prodded me more and more, and I ignored him. Because I chose doing work over being constantly interrupted, I fought back and my natural instinct told him to fuck off. Now he made me his target. One payday when I waited in line for my check, he constantly called me out for attention to see if I would turn my head for the sole purpose of distracting me. Then he followed me out of work where he would taunt me, screech, sneer, and cat-call my name from across the parking lot as I walked towards my car like the nancy stalker he was.

**********

His huge Achilles heel was with women. He’d leer and whistle at them. He’d rev himself up as he jabbed me to explain in juicy chauvinistic detail of all the things he wish he would do to them. It only took one defining moment to give him away: one night my department learned that Porky got caught eying one of the Miami blondes at register and it got back to us via a manager. She thought he was creepy. We all laughed because her one-word description fit him perfectly and it started a non-stop tabloid obsession. All the jocks and alpha males became gum-snapping gossip whores once again.

More stories kept on coming. Porky set his sights on this low-grade three-out-of-ten brunnette that was in our department; low enough that she was good for him and went for it. We had no idea what really happened except that Porky claimed to have gotten a piece of the action. Diamanda, the Irish girl at the front desk, was going crazy when she told me that he left messages on her social media for all to see…on Valentine’s Day. But what had me suspicious was that I noticed him having eyes on a young Indian girl walking by our department who happened to be underage but he didn’t mind.

However, nothing else could compare when my co-worker Danni, the caramel-haired cashier with a whip-snap ability for finding gossip, had more news for me the next day.

“I have to tell you something.” Danni motions her hand at me toward the desk. “You know that Porky was checking me out from across the counter the entire time?”

More, please.

“Then last night when I left work, he waited for me right outside the entrance and offered me a ride home because he knew I didn’t have my car with me. So I said ‘no’ to him. Oh m’ god! I hid in the pizzeria for a half-an-hour until I left. And then he drove past me as I got into my friend’s car and he got real pissed at me because he thought I lied to him!”

Whereas Danni and I rarely spoke the previous two years had now become an everyday news update. A week later we heard that Porky was found washing her car’s tires in the parking lot, the new doe he was interested in. My co-workers and I struggled to process this for five minutes before we labeled him the laughingstock of the workplace.

Danni turned to the franchise’s son about the incident, who told our manager who warned Porky. Poor little frustrated Porky was incensed not only because Danni pushed him away but also he was snitched on. So incensed that he started slut-shaming on a daily basis and shortly after almost ran her over with his car. An alliance was made and I volunteered to play defender. It was unanimous. All of us wanted him out before he does more damage.

We finally declared a victor, ladies and gentleman.

**********

One day I had a customer requesting something rare, so I went to the back to retrieve it. I move a cart out of the way and accidently knocked a bucket of celery off a shelf with the cart. Porky was not pleased at all seeing his hard work fall to the floor. Being the responsible guilty party I am, I voluntarily clean up my mistake and dispose of it. It was time to turn the page and move on with my life.

“Hey, did you hear what I told you?” Porky barked.

“Excuse me?”

“Are you going to cut me up some more celery?” Porky demanded.

“Sorry. It’s not my duty to.”

That was my response. Had he asked me nicely then I would have been more than happy to chop up some replacement celery, but no. Instead he chose to become instant royalty and I chose to stand my ground. I will not be talked down to and take orders from a desperate zero who was not my manager.

Never mind the fact that I made a mistake and corrected it, and I even technically said ��sorry’. He was not satisfied. In the next half-hour he would bring this up three more times because he had the inability to progress and move on past the small things in his feeble life. Everything in the world needed to stop because he was the department diva. He needed to have his way in order to move forward. And after all this I still ignored him and moved on.

One hour later and it is break time. As I head to clock out for a fifteen-minute time-out Jesus approached me. Not the second coming, but Danni and I referred to him as Jesus simply because he was skinny, had long hair, and a goatee. O’ fucking laughing marijuana Jesus.

“Hey! Do you drive a gold or silver car?” Jesus inquired. “Yeah, I drive a silver car. What’s up?”

“Oh, I’m asking because something just happened to a customer’s car.” Jesus dashes out and I walk to the punch clock. Then a second person stops me.

“You drive a silver vehicle, right?” asked Paddy, the head maiden.

“Yeah…uh, what’s going on?”

“There seems to be a mess on someone’s car. I’m not sure if it’s yours, though…”

Wait a minute. You’re kidding me, right?

Jesus and I walk out to the lot where he leads me to my car. Bits and bits of celery streaked all over the windshield and hood of my car. Such an absolute careless act from a go-nowhere lowlife who has to be number-fucking-one over everything and everyone. He’s now sent a message: I’m the king of the workplace. I have the last word on everything. Never defy me. Never stand up or talk back to me. Lie down and take it, or else.

Jesus volunteered to clean off much of Porky’s mess as possible and I felt real bad that he did so. He was only human in which he didn’t do a complete job by creating some holy miracle to make my car sparkling clean but I absolutely cannot complain.

Everyone was gunning for Porky at this point. From chasing every female in the store with two legs, pushing us around, and filling the natural air with magical storybook claims and one-liners, he was bringing the entire workplace down. They deemed him as the useless un-tolerable self-superior asshole that had to go. They did everything they could to get rid of him but they all failed. But I had just the one thing to do so: the footage of him dumping my car caught on camera.

My managers asked me what exactly happened and I told them right down the line. My allies learned what Porky did and sided with me on the grounds that they were sick and tired of being targeted and spat on by him. The managers went right to the footage, reviewed it, and saw what he did. They were disgusted. Huffing, rolling their eyes, throwing their arms up and shaking their heads that a grown man would resort to playground games and petty retaliation tactics. They would even get him on shoplifting since he walked out with the celery without paying for it.

And they finally disciplined him: with a written warning. He walks.

I wasn’t surprised that they dropped the ball. When people get picked on daily or a major incident involving empty male bravado over trivial things occurs, not a thing would be done. These people had a better chance being fired by not showing up or coming to work drunk or high than doing something outrageous. In fact, my co-workers invent new ways of pissing customers and each other off and somehow kept their jobs. (They were friends with the manager’s son.) Yes, it is that hard to be fired where I work. And then there’s Porky, who technically got off simply because he did no damage to my car.

For defending myself and showing Porky that I refused to be pushed around, I was insulted and laughed at by him. He can do whatever he feels like and he’ll walk. No further repercussions because what’s the point? Would I say something to him, he would say something back and laugh in my face in a very sneer manner. Everyone felt powerless, none more than I.

After this incident, nothing really mattered anymore. It didn’t matter if I worked hard or went the extra mile for someone. What mattered most was Porky because he was the free ride. He was above all. As long as he worked with us he’d continue to miraculously dodge bullets. He’ll continue to wobble and sweat across the playfield to the nearest manager to save his ass and belittle anyone he wants to for another day. Our managers who were supposed to look out for us instead fumbled and said “oops!” as they looked the other way. Porky will continue to pollute the air with his lowest common denominator trash-TV mind, his sleazy junk-food personality, and his Opie & Anthony lifestyle. There is nothing we can do about it.

**********

“There is something I need to tell you!” Danni smiles in excitement.

I pause and wait for it.

“Porky…just…got…arrested!”

“What?”

“Porky was arrested this morning!”

It’s payday and I arrive well after Porky’s shift ended to get my check, just to be safe. Not even three seconds of walking into work, Danni got me.

She was the most excited I’d ever seen her. She felt like she hit the jackpot. Knowing that she never lies, I knew I struck gold as well. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that it couldn’t have happened to someone more deserving.

My co-workers in my department greeted me with smiles and fist-bumps when they confirmed the news to me. They saw Porky’s step-ma come in to tell my manager that Porky wouldn’t be in. They also overheard that she refused to bail him out. All throughout the day they speculated what really happened. Some said he got pulled over and the cops found a stash in his trunk. (”Half-a-dozen pizza pies and a few bags of cheese doodles!”) Others said that he must have washed the wrong girl’s tires. Still, my department gave Porky a proper send-off by telling stories and making fun of him for weeks to come; the usual gossiping obsessive little mincer mice they  all are.

For all the times Porky treated us poorly, we were all vindicated. It took his foolishness and a stroke of luck to bring about his downfall. My manager red-cards him and crosses him off the schedule with no chance of ever coming back. As with getting off the hook of vandalizing my car, he was fired simply because he was unable to show up for it. Live by the technicality, die by the technicality. My department’s morale has been its highest all year, the cashier girls no longer work in fear of surveillance, and I thanked Karma for paying him a long-overdue visit.

**********

When I got home from work and opened my e-mail, a link was sent to me from my co-worker waiting to be opened. I click on it, enter the numeric code, and upon further investigation I’d find out the real reason why Porky was arrested: he was charged with forcible touching of a minor under eleven.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

[operationrainfall]

Title Mechstermination Force Developer Hörberg Productions Publisher Hörberg Productions Release Date April 4th, 2019 Genre Run and gun, platformer, boss rush Platform Nintendo Switch Age Rating E for Everyone – Mild Fantasy Violence Official Website

I think by now I have to admit something about myself – sometimes I like hard as nails games. I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a masochist, but I do find the reward for beating a challenging title to be a heady drug. Which brings us to today’s review, Mechstermination Force. Developed and published by the same group behind Gunman Clive, Hörberg Productions, it’s a very different beast from that Western platformer. Instead it’s strongly inspired by Contra, with towering boss battles against deadly MegaMechs. Throw in a little more inspiration from Shadow of the Colossus, and you have a pure boss rush against mechanical bosses that get progressively harder. The question then, is Mechstermination Force worth the price of admission? Or is it too hard for its own good?

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First, let me clarify that while there is a plot in the game, it’s just there to set the tone. The world is besieged by MegaMechs, and only a small band of freedom fighters remain. You’re one of them, and it’s up to you to put the robot menace down. That’s pretty much it, other than some clarifying details for why lone soldiers stand a chance where planes and tanks didn’t, which is explained if you talk with your compatriots. But the focus here is really on the action, and there’s a lot to be had. Essentially it’s broken down into 10+ boss battles, and between each you can use cash you get from slagging them to improve your loadout. You only start with a small amount of health and a machine gun, but you can acquire a bunch of other weapons, ranging from a flamethrower to a pulse weapon. Once purchased, you can switch between them at will. You can also buy more health, either permanently or spend less cash to get temporary health boosts before battle. My best advice is to invest in the spreadshot as soon as possible, since it makes every fight a little bit easier when you don’t have to worry as much about your aim. Also, if you find you’re low on funds, you can always replay fights to farm more cash, which is a nice concession to make the game a bit easier without completely eliminating the challenge.

Besides these optional upgrades, you also get progressive ones at set points in the game to provide you with more maneuverability. Specifically, you’ll get the Magnet Gloves, which allow you to cling to surfaces, and later on the Boost Boots, which provide a much needed double jump. You’d think this would make the game easier, but really it just opens up subsequent boss fights to be more complex and dangerous. The flow of the game is relief whenever you beat a seemingly impossible fight, quickly followed by dread that the next one will be a bit harder. But instead of despair, this just led me to gird my loins for the next battle and to try and learn the attack patterns as quickly as possible. Though the game doesn’t give you any real hints for how to beat the bosses, their design and attack patterns are constructed in such a way that the answer becomes obvious if you think critically and pay attention. Furthermore, it helps that one thing each boss has in common are weak points.

The yellow weak points are vulnerable to any weapon, and can usually be dismantled by concentrating fire on them. The tricky ones are the red weak points, since they can only be hurt by your sole melee weapon – a multi-directional baseball bat. You use this to shatter the red points, but keep in mind it takes a second to aim, and the MegaMechs don’t just wait for you to kill them. They’ll buck and twist and generally make your life miserable as you try and put them down. But other than those weakpoints and the way the bosses try and avoid getting hurt, each and every fight is entirely different and generally unexpected. As you damage their weakpoints, the robots will lose limbs and often transform into new, deadlier forms. Don’t go into this with the zombie headshot mentality. Often you’ll decapitate a boss only for it to sprout a new head or utterly change forms as it tries to rip you to shreds. It’s a lot like fighting against angry Decepticons with a bloodlust for pulping humans. And trust me, each and every boss is fully capable to reducing you to a gooey stain in seconds if you’re not careful.

Having said all that, I would still say that Mechstermination Force is fair. It’s tough, and requires patience, but it’s never completely unreasonable. There are certainly a few bosses that strain that rule, such as the most horrible escargot ever, a skyscraper-climbing ape and what I can only refer to as a death skull, but otherwise they all felt balanced. Which isn’t the same as easy, cause the only easy boss is the tutorial one, and things start to get really challenging about 4 boss fights in. But in a boss rush full of death bots, I feel they toe the line pretty well. And if you really feel overwhelmed, I strongly suggest you farm money by taking on old bosses again and buying all the upgrades you can. I ended up beating the game after buying several health extensions and most of the weapons, but in retrospect I probably could have beaten the game with fewer health upgrades and just the spreadshot.

Another of the reasons this game manages to avoid being totally unfair are some nice concessions. First of all, there is no instant death if you fall into a pit or get singed by lava. Instead, if you fall into a pit you will teleport to another part of the stage after losing one chunk of health. Meanwhile threats like lava damage you, but then the game will raise a platform to stand on from underneath it. You can also get pieces of cake to recover your health during battles, but there was seemingly no rhyme or reason for when this occurred. The one frustrating aspect of that is that often the cake would spawn right underneath a giant MegaMech, and by the time I could get to it, it would have disappeared. Also, while each fight involves a hail of bullets and gymnastic feats, you can beat most of them in under 5 minutes. At least once you’ve memorized their attack patterns. That applies for both the tiny bosses and the large ones. And when I say large, I mean boss fights that are almost their own level. A good example is fighting the Cerberus mech, which involves you jumping in their mouths, avoiding getting chomped, blasting your way through their throats and then rinse and repeat. By contrast, the smaller bosses almost felt like mini bosses, but they also provided refreshing breaks from the more hectic battles.

There’s a lot I enjoyed about Mechstermination Force, but now I need to touch on some frustrations. Because the foes you fight are often huge, the camera has to shoot a broad angle as you fight. The problem with that is you’re so tiny, it can often be hard to tell where you are, especially after the boss sends you flying with a giant fist. In the fight against the mechanized snail, every time you damage his head the game randomly sends you flying, and often I took damage just cause I hadn’t gotten my bearings before he started bombarding me with flaming debris. Also problematic was the ability to freely aim your weapon of choice. That’s great in theory, but to aim you need to duck down, and when I tried aiming with my joystick, bullets wouldn’t end up exactly where I wanted. My workaround was to use the directional buttons instead, and that offered more concrete angles that allowed me to more frequently hit my targets. I almost wish it had stuck to Contra’s tried and true method of only offering set angles of fire, but I suppose that would be harder to accommodate in a game where each boss is constantly moving. And while I loved the Magnet Gloves for scaling giant MegaMechs, there were times they didn’t work properly. And I even encountered one glitch in the Cerberus fight where I somehow phased through a solid space, though that actually ended up helping me.

I did get a chance to try out the local co-op in the game, and though it’s a fun idea in theory, it was messier in execution. While it played without any lag, all the problems I had with single player were exaggerated with two players. The camera was even more problematic, and it’s very difficult to coordinate as the robots bear down on you. It also was tricky having my friend essentially look over my broad shoulders to see the screen when played portably. I suppose I should have played while hooked up to my TV. Also, I wish two player allowed some popular conventions such as sacrificing some health to revive your buddy. That isn’t an option, so once someone dies, the other person is entirely on their own. As far as I’m concerned, Mechstermination Force is much better as a single player experience.

Visually speaking, there’s a lot to love about Mechstermination Force. It has big, bold colors and bright visuals for your weapon fire. Each and every MegaMech is a work of art, featuring layered dimensions that slowly evolve as you fight. It’s really cool ripping the armor off a foe to scale them, and watching them transform as you deal critical damage. Though many of the bosses qualify as humanoid, there’s also some great ones patterned after creatures, such as a centipede, the aforementioned snail and even a large arachnid. You won’t get bored with the visuals in the game, that’s a guarantee. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the sound. While the music is fine, I really wish there were more varied tracks. Though there is a handful, many of them sound very similar to each other. I would have loved more variety, like some hard rocking tunes to mix things up. As for the sound effects, though they work, they also felt a bit muted. The way your character grunts when damaged didn’t really do justice to the amount of punishment they’re taking. The sound effects are thankfully better for the weapons. Overall, the visuals are the better aspect of the game, but the sound design is alright.

By the time the credits rolled, I had spent about 4 and a half hours and gotten 80+ deaths in Mechstermination Force. While I rather enjoyed it overall, there were some features that held it back from perfection. And also, though the final boss is beyond epic, it too suffered from the same complaints I had about earlier battles. But for the base package, I feel you get a lot for your money. My main frustration is that once it’s over, there’s nothing left to do, other than trying to beat the bosses without taking damage to acquire medals. Thankfully I’m not quite that masochistic, so I think I’ll pass. That said, for $11.99 it’s easy to recommend to fans of hardcore games, though I can’t say the same applies to those who identify as more casual gamers. But if you love giant robots and are up for a challenge, Mechstermination Force is the game for you!

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3.5″]

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

REVIEW: Mechstermination Force Title Mechstermination Force

[writingcommons-blog1]

“The Fine Line Between Love & Hate “ by Peyten L.

Toxicity. Self worth. Destruction. Forgiveness. Alteration. Judgement. Joy. Tears. You. I. Us. Love How did we become these words – at what point did these words start to become what I defined as love? 

Two years ago, if Sam had asked me to describe us, and what I felt for him I would’ve said something along the lines of how he made me feel like summer… warm, free, sun kissed, and enlightened in the sense that I finally felt like I had found where I belonged – with him. When we would sit on the cool blacktop on the peak of his steep driveway, in front of the sunflower yellow home where he once lived, and watch the sky fade away as night cast over the day, I would look into his deep blue eyes and know that what we had was real. 

I knew that I was loved and that I loved him. When I reflect on the conversations we had when I felt like we were the most us, the happiest, there’s one that I go back to every time.

He had said “time goes by too fast with you.”

And I had said “It always goes by too fast. It probably always will” “I’ll always have time for you though.”

“Pomise?”

“I promise”

I didn’t know that our time was limited, that it would go by that fast and this would be a promise that would be broken. It was the feeling of warmth, the open promises we made, the love that I know I felt that kept me going when we would fight or he would become something he wasn’t in the beginning. When we were summer, I was consumed by the thought of us and our future together. The idea of us became entangled into every thought I had, I thought it was normal. I wanted to spend every second with him. His house became my second home, his family like my own and vice versa. His family gave me a stocking at Christmas, took me on vacation, and even cried when I left for college. Our lives were completely intertwined in every aspect. I didn’t realize that letting him into every minuet detail of my life meant that each memory of that time would be tainted and leave a burning feeling in my mouth when I talked about them two years later.

We weren’t summer for long, or maybe I should say that he wasn’t. Autumn came. We didn’t sit outside and talk anymore, and when I peered into Sam’s eyes he didn’t smile like he used to. In the beginning, I’d catch him glancing down at me, not smiling ear to ear, but presenting a small grin that said what his words didn’t… “I’m happy, I love you, and I don’t want anyone else.” A while passed though and he didn’t look at me like I put the stars in the sky, and he definitely didn’t half smirk at me anymore. I knew he wasn’t as smitten as he once was.

“I love you Sam.”

“Why do you say that so much?”

He started replying with that more often, and each time it felt like I had been punched in the gut by the Hulk. I wondered if maybe I did say it too much, and that something was wrong with me because I wanted him to say it more. I felt needy and I started to wonder if most people in relationships feel needy, because why should I feel needy if I have everything I needed? If I laid my head on Sam’s chest his heart wouldn’t beat fast anymore, the butterflies had faded. When we were us, I learned how to drive with just my left hand so my right one could be placed in his.  

But he stopped calling me beautiful and stopped holding my hand in the car. I thought maybe it was supposed to be this way, the honeymoon phase is over, this is what normalcy is. I altered my way of love. I always thought that love was supposed to be something that consumed you at every minute of every day, love was supposed to make you so slap happy that you looked like a drunk person every time you lost yourself in the thought of the one you loved. But he made me think I was wrong, that we loved each other, but that we didn’t need to show it anymore.

Autumn was okay, But then his season turned. I looked into his blue eyes, and instead of losing myself in them the way someone loses themselves reading an epic novel, I lost myself in a way that made me feel like I was submerged under water floating right underneath the surface, but knowing that coming up for air was an impossible task to do. I would look at him just as I always had and he would ask me why I had such a staring problem or just ignore my eye contact. Despite his changes, I constantly did everything in my power to show him the affection I thought he deserved. I brought him lunch, picked him up for school everyday, helped him in school to the point where I would stay up to do his work on top of my own. He used to say thank you when I did things like this. The thank you stopped and there were some points where I would silently cry to myself laying next to him in bed, wondering why he didn’t appreciate what I had done. Maybe I hadn’t done enough?  I used to think that he was the breath of fresh air I needed, when really it was his thumb that was pushing on my trachea slower and slower, ultimately suppressing the most human ability – breathing. His words once filled with warmth, were now frozen leaving frostbite on my self worth and outlook on life. He stopped inviting me places, and his sentences contained more swear words than ones that weren’t. He not only became cold, but then became untrustworthy. Acquaintances would text my friends telling them that they saw Sam out all over a bunch of girls, acting like he wasn’t in a relationship. When I would confront him he would turn it around on me.

“If you can’t trust me after two fucking years, then what the fuck are we even doing together?” Sam would say.

“I do trust you, just promise me that you’ll try and be better about telling me who you’re with?”

“Well I’ll fucking try, but all you do is bitch. You just need to trust me.”

Our conversations like this were frequent, and then we would be okay and I would feel that he loved me, and then he would fuck up again. It became what felt like an endless cycle. I would pretend like he didn’t lie, and I would defend him to my friends and family that clearly could see what I couldn’t – that he was deceptive, a liar, and that he didn’t make me feel warm anymore. I had nightmares about him cheating on me, and I honestly thought that maybe something was seriously wrong with me because I didn’t feel the love he supposedly gave me. I blamed it on myself thinking that I just had trust issues. I knew we were not summer, and we were not fall, we were winter – and the most unequivocally gut wrenching part of it all was that I was willing to endure the blizzard that he had become, purely because I had lost myself trying to hold on to the love we once had.

***

It’s August 27th, two days after Sam and Payten’s two year anniversary, she lives in Iowa City now though and he is still in high school in the town they lived in. He never stopped becoming winter and as his storm raged on, she become more frozen and numb. Numb to how he made her feel, numb to the words of spite he would throw at it her, like “you’re a dumbass, you’re not pretty… stop fucking crying I didn’t even yell at you, you’re such a child.”  Here’s the thing about being frozen though… something that’s frozen must inevitably break.

It’s midnight and Payten has finally broken, in more ways than one. She has just read the derogatory messaging between Sam and another girl, who he had supposedly slept with a few months prior. This girl was Payten’s friend, teammate and co-worker, which was why it was easy for her to not believe it when people had said Sam slept with her. Payten knows that she shouldn’t dig through his twitter account, but she’s so far away distance wise and he’s been so distant emotionally. She knows he has the same password for everything, so she decides it’s finally time to pry the truth if he won’t willingly give it to her.

“You have been forwarded to an automated voice messaging system”

Payten calls back, again and again, waiting an hour in between. Her hands are shaking as she dials the phone each time, tears hitting the illuminated screen as she thinks of everything she will actually say when he finally answers. She thinks of what she wants to say, of what he will say. Part of her though, hopes that he doesn’t answer.Because the conversation she read, which depicted a scene of her boyfriend and another girl in bed together, was nothing she hadn’t heard before. If we are being honest, she half expected to see that conversation on there, but nevertheless seeing it still hurt the same despite the fact that she already knew about it. The girl Sam had been messaging had said how lucky he was that he got to sleep with her and how she’d see him again soon. The messages had been going on for months now.  3 am hits.

“Payten, what the hell do you want?” Sam said.

“Tell me the truth, I mean it this time, you may as well tell me because I already know the truth, so don’t try and deny it.” Payten said.

“Why this is relevant right now?”

“I honestly just want to know why Sam. Why wasn’t I good enough, okay wait scratch that. Was I too good, did you need to self destruct because you couldn’t handle that what we had was real? Seriously you at least owe me an explanation.”

“Payten, there is no reason, I don’t know why I did it.”

“Did you ever love me?”

“Of course”

“Because Sam, last time I checked people who love each other don’t sleep with other people”

“Okay Payten”

“That’s it, after two years. All you did was take and take, and you can’t even answer one simple question. Why?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say”

“I want you to say the truth for one damn second of your life”

“That is the truth though, I have no explanation.”

The call ended just as the relationship had.

***

What I still don’t understand is why I wasn’t enough. Why wasn’t the love I gave him enough to make him love me just as much as I loved him? Why did I change myself for someone who didn’t compromise a single thing about himself in two years? Why, even after everything he has done to me, do I still care what happens to him? Why does hearing that his life is falling apart hurt every fiber of my being, when it should make me happy to know that he can’t function well without me? Why does anyone put up with relationships filled with emotional abuse?

Emotional abuse is real, because while I may not have had bruises on my skin, my mental state, self worth, outlook on life and love had all been left broken and bruised. The larger question that this entire situation leaves me thinking about it is why do I, or a majority of all types of people, succumb to lessening ourselves in order to believe that what we have is love. And is that love? Or was there ever even really love there to begin with, because there is a fine line between love and hate. Both feelings of such raw passion, so can you actually have a relationship purely of love or will some hate always fester underneath the surface waiting for it’s moment to burst out and overpower the love that is there? If we gave all of the love we had in a relationship that didn’t give any back, is there any love left to give to the next person that actually deserves it?

This speaks measures to the idea of love in the society which we currently live in. If you look at the divorce rate in our country alone, it has shown that an astronomical amount of people have allowed hate to consume their once pure relationship. If you look at the amount of men and women who lessen themselves and allow for emotional and physical abuse to be welcomed into their relationship, it speaks volumes to how people in our society are so hungry to be loved and to feel loved that they become confused on what love really is. Love is an abstract concept, but if we strip it down to the bare basics of what it really means it is clear to see what love is not. It is not words of hate, degrading yourself, degrading the other person to make yourself feel bigger or better. Love is not cheating, love is not hatred, love is not abuse. If love is not all of these things, then why are so many people, myself included confusing them as attributes of a healthy relationship?