My friends were in a computer screen and my dad let me stay in my room to talk to them, so long as I went to church the next morning. My grandma bought me flip flops and jean shorts and cheap flowered shirts. They talked about how lazy I was. I punched myself in the chest when it all got to be too much.

In my daydreams, I was a child in soldier’s clothes, carried off from my family and martyred in some proxy war. But I was a girl and the Holy Roman Empire didn’t want me. So I tried to get away by chasing boys and going to their basketball games late at night and kissing them when I thought they would like it. They were all lanky and quiet and sad. I was curly haired and a poet and vulnerable, still growing into my shoes. Some boys seemed kind, but their love for me was a riddle or a funny joke because they couldn’t even love themselves. They didn’t know how.

One day at a time, I grew up. School stopped being easy when everything had to be in APA format, and I often wanted to stay in bed and never wake up. Politics and people on the Internet made me angry, and I thought they should be beaten over the head with a Bible. I eventually realized that I was crazy because my family was crazy. At some point, I forgave them. When my dad dug in the garden, I helped him even though I was so tired, just because I hated to see him out there alone.

I slowly quit going to the Internet for advice and started going to sweet old ladies. They told me I knew in my heart what is right, so I said goodbye to an awkward, gifted boy who I adored and would’ve married but who refused to grow up. I went to bed earlier. I tried to listen to my preacher and my professors, even though I still mistrusted them. I stopped hating children and their joy and their innocence.

War is real in many places right now, and while I am safe in my little small town bubble, maybe my brother and his friends will have to answer the call of duty soon. For now, I’m planning my wedding to a blue collar man, writing research papers, and cooking suppers every day. The chickens peck and squawk and make babies out the window in the front yard. I go out and pull up the carrots from last fall and smile into the sunshine, grateful.

Grateful that my heart has been gently bruised to the point of softening. Loneliness will do horrible things to a child, but as an adult, every day I decide to make war with it. Sometimes, I choose to ignore my doubts.

I let my mind be conditioned to believe in the good life. I am so glad I that I did.

I believe that you love me.

It's been said to me before,

but never in a way that made me feel comforted;

never in a way I didn't doubt.

From the start,

you've shown me how much you love me.

You've held the door,

picked me up when I was down,

lit up the dark corners of the house in my mind.

You've held my hand,

and even when we're apart,

you still show me you love me.

You never disappear,

you answer immediately almost every time I message.

You show me you care.

So when you said you love me

for the first time,

my only thought was happiness.

I truly believe that you do,

and it's because you've conditioned me to.

You've proven with actions,

what others have only ever said with words.

You're the reason I believe in love.

there is only reality

everyone's indelibly inked

tattooed eternally living colored

hands neck genitals eyelids brain

your experiences stick like dogshit

you can wash go to therapy but the stink

persisting perseveres permeates suffocates

sticks like super sticky gorilla glue

tearing off skin in bleeding layers

trying to peel it away

conditioning an individual

dye job embarked at birth

coloring our actual thoughts

deep down beneath our roots

pull out your hair one by one

feel the little fat growth sac pop out

do it a thousand times over by then

new hairs will begin to pop in

tangled multicolored jumble mess

mixed brewed up singular realities

Neo means new

So I suppose his name in the Matrix is indicative of the world he'd be exposed to

New

Far removed from his beliefs

Beyond his notion of reality

Or...

What he was conditioned to believe

Yet it didn't take away from the fact

There is a world that many of us never consider to perceive

There was no condition to conceive an unseen existential reality

Lying in the depths of one's psyche

A button that could be pressed to unveil what escapes the rest

A condition

Unconditioned

Conforming many to less