"my love is something that niggas will take & use to their advantage"

She asked me the question in all seriousness.

"Why you gotta be this way? You know this is fucked up. Like, majorly fucked up."

I looked up at her pleading face, all wide-eyed and incredulous, waiting for a suitable answer.

Pain roiled in my stomach. I rubbed my face with my hands and sighed.

"It's called the hate that hate made. You can only endure so much venom before it starts to affect you. Pretty soon, you're craving the taste. It becomes fuel. Since none of this matters and we're all gonna die anyway, why not be like this?"

She looked at me for a long time before speaking.

"Well. You can't tell me that you're happy. At all."

I laughed a single "Ha!"

"Happy? Please. No one is happy. Even the ones that think they are. In actuality, they're all just doing everything they can to distract themselves of the truth. I've just chosen a different distraction than most."

She tried to smile. But he was unmoved, giving her a cold, blank stare that made her shiver just a little.

"So...that's it?"

He lit another cigarette and stared at his shoes. Battered old New Balance shoes he scored at some stupid party a million years ago. They reminded him of those times, when he too just ignored reality, busting ass just to stay in step with the zombie-sheep masses.

"Yeah. That's it."