But I'm only kind to hurt myself...

I'm honest, sometimes, because it makes you uncomfortable. So when you tell me, "It's so refreshing" to hear me speak with such clarity and openness, know that my intention was not to be a spring but a drought, to drain you of presuppositions and rip through entanglements. I never meant to give you a "nice way of looking at things". In fact, I never meant to give you anything at all. I wanted to take away all looking at things, all standing on solid ground, all perspective, and subconscious ideas, and shatter every last pane of assumption not just to shine a little light on the situation but to bring in a draft that would chill you till pneumonia set in. I'm talking frankly not to make you miss the old days when folks were more honest but, if we're going to be time-traveling at all, to take you back to the day you figured out that grown-ups didn't really know what they were talking about but you couldn't say anything 'cause you were just a kid. And speaking of "just", no, I'm not "just saying". I mean this. When there's something right in front of you—look at it! I mean, really look at it. Somehow, simultaneously take everything you've ever learned about dissecting a situation and use it to utterly devastate and violate. And then, or perhaps instead of that, throw away everything you've ever learned about anything and everything, and just experienced it. Get slapped in the face by a wave, eyes and mouth open, even though you think you know what it'll be like. Check the handle to a door that's "always locked". Go over and sit at that table, yes that table, and talk to those people who "don't want to talk to somebody like me". Say hello to the old friend you stopped talking to somewhere down the line or finally ask that person their name, unashamedly admitting to the whole world that you're interested enough in them as a person not to pretend to know just long enough to move past the stage where you have to.

Mean it when you say it, whatever it is. 'Cause I do, and after all, I'm only saying this to make you uncomfortable.