Knees and Fists and Teeth

It's hard to know these things, these things I don't want to be true enough to have to know them, but before I began starting to let my eyes open to see, my opting for blindness was causing problems. It's hard to be aware of that which you haven't allowed yourself to think before, or it would be more accurate to say it's that which something in you- some force without a name or explicable form or certain feeling but something bigger and more powerful than your free will to make your own choices, its seems- something in you is not allowing you to think, or see, or know. Fighting that is hard. Fighting the blinkers that fall down to make you unassuming, the tendency to interpret the words you hear as though you are hearing them from the kind well-meaning father you never had, the stubborn ignoring of gestures that seem not quite as fatherly, and your unending determination to argue with your better judgment and settle on a restructured memory that no, was nothing like that, don't be silly. It's hard but it's important or you get into trouble as you chat amicably with he who breathes close on your neck when he leans over you, mock-affectionate-and-cute. It is important so you do not write your phone number on that kitchen roll and entertain any ideas of a friendly relationship with someone a lot older whose live-in girlfriend is a few feet away and because you have to understand that when he says that you two ought to meet, he does not want to be your father figure or your friend, and what he is really asking is whether you will have an affair with him and allow him to breathe on your neck away from the thieving eyes of other people in the room, other half included. You thought being unassuming would prevent you from ever becoming egotistical, but that is redundant when you just end up ignorant and potentially hurting people anyway.