The first time I lied to stay loved...

The first time I lied to stay loved is a memory hard to recall.

No matter how far back I go into my memories, the furthest reach barely being kindergarten. I have remnants of a story that's long been blocked and barred away due to trauma and pain that I was too young to endure. My psyche has been conformed around a foreign object, shelled, deeply scarred and etched far beneath the surface. 

Perhaps the first time I lied to stay loved is a memory I cannot recall because that had been my entire life until I rescued myself from this expectation. There's always been a blazing fire that's whirled around inside me and that has been hard to contain. I've always caused more hurt than intended, always said more than was needed. Being such a savage fire and having been left unattended for most of my childhood, there was little to no knowledge about how to be easily lovable. I imagine it is hard to love a fire that is out of control and easily burns. Anything untameable must on some level be viewed as a threat, even in love. 

In love people want to stay warm, have a hot moment here and there, feel the slight tease of burning passion that unlocks rivers of sweat and pleasure. But actually being burned is a kink very few posses and even then it's possible the inflictor and inflicted probably have different thresholds. 

There will almost always be a compromise from the party with the Phoenix fire burning within.
Them perhaps unwittingly wielding the Life or Death type of power. 

So, the first somewhat-memory I can recall about lying to stay loved is a blurry, can't exactly be placed in time, haze where I'm upset and about to cry as a fight unfolds with my mother and she either tells me "Stop crying, i can't stand it when you cry!" or "Go away if you're going to cry, i don't want to see it." 

I'm not exactly sure if those were the words, if either was the exact sentence, but the message was clear: if I cry when I'm upset then I am not worthy of her attention, or in this translation, her love. 

I either stopped crying and pushed down my feelings to satisfy my mother or, probably more later in life, took the right to cry and forfeited her love, her attention in those moments where I needed her most. It was never what i did, it was how i reacted when the matter was being confronted. She valued honesty but always punished a show of weakness. Understandably so, she hadn't been allowed to show any sign of weakness for the majority of her own life, which isn't a pretty story either. 

A sad confession to add to the end is that I too carry the echo of my mothers wound as it has become my wound. If there's one thing that sets this feeling ablaze, its a showcase of weakness.

And there I go, a wildfire ignites.