Expensive Wine

I've never entered a relationship expecting loyalty—not from anyone. Because loyalty is not something you demand; it's a quality you're born with. Either it lives in you, weathering every storm and temptation, or it doesn't exist there at all. Most likely, loyalty is something you learn in childhood. Once you're grown, you can't simply acquire it fresh.

And yes, what I've taken the hardest blows from—more than once—is this: the shock of standing alone while managing a relationship my own way, refusing to listen to anyone else's words or warnings. I've stood against the world for someone. Only to discover, much later, that the very person I stood for had already taken their own stand against me.

I'm bringing this up now because of a status about loyalty. At least being more loyal than I am would be quite the feat. If I have but a single virtue as a lover, it's loyalty. And for this very loyalty, no respectable man has ever been able to stomach me.

I'm like that expensive foreign liquor everyone wants to taste. Some couldn't afford it because of the price. Others who could, they took one sip of something unfamiliar and vomited. They said, "Why does this taste so awful? Yuck!" Never understanding that liquor isn't like Coca-Cola—something you just pour into a glass and gulp down. Drinking properly requires preparation, and most of all, you need to be mentally ready for it.

Then there are those who couldn't digest me and threw me up. They couldn't accept that their own stomach was too ordinary, too weak to handle something refined. Listen—those accustomed to fifty-taka country liquor from any roadside shop can manage up to cheap brandy at best. Nothing more.

When you can't digest something, calling it filthy is about all you're left with. I beat my own drum. I feel no discomfort from it. Quite the opposite—it brings me peace.