Safe Word

You say my safe word is "fuck you,"

as though I should be embarrassed by it.

Not realizing

it's pests like you

I reserve my "fuck you" for,

the way sane people reserve rat poison

for infestations,

not houseguests.

You hear "fuck you"

and mistake it for participation.

Which is adorable.

Because parasites have always confused survival

with relevance.

You flatter yourself

into believing you're troublesome enough

to occupy real estate in my thoughts.

You mistake irritation

for significance.

You mistake acknowledgment

for respect.

You mistake being noticed

for mattering.

A mosquito can interrupt sleep.

That doesn't make it memorable.

The problem with vermins

has never been appetite.

It is imagination.

Stay long enough

inside someone else's walls,

and eventually

you begin believing

the house was built around you.

It wasn't.

You arrived later.

Hungry.

Uninvited.

And immediately mistook consumption

for contribution.

That is the tragedy of pests.

Not that they feed.

That they mistake feeding

for purpose.

My beard bothers you.

Which is strange.

It has survived longer

than most of your convictions.

It grows in one direction,

year after year,

without rephrasing itself every season

to match whichever outrage

is currently paying dividends.

You complain the music is too loud.

It isn't.

It's the lyrics.

Volume never frightened you.

Meaning did.

Because noise can be ignored.

Recognition cannot.

You wanted to be seen.

You wanted to be heard.

You wanted to be important.

And yet somehow,

despite all the shouting,

all the posturing,

all the elaborate theatre of indignation,

you accumulated

the way dust accumulates:

everywhere,

gradually,

and only becoming visible

when sunlight enters the room.

That is why my "fuck you"

offends you so deeply.

Not because it is cruel.

Because it is economical.

It denies you

the one thing

you have spent your entire life demanding:

importance.

So yes,

for your sake,

let's agree

my safe word is "fuck you."

What is yours?

No —

don't answer.

I already know.

Victimhood.

The difference is,

mine ends conversations.

Yours starts them.

Mine is a boundary.

Yours is a business model.

One asks to be left alone.

The other cannot survive

without an audience.

And that,

more than anything,

is why one of us sleeps

and the other 

keeps crashing into ill-lit candles.

And as for safe words, 

I don't need one.

Safe words exist

for things afraid of consequences.

I am a creature of consequence.