what you

What you do, you think, depends entirely on others. On circumstances you have no strength, no way to change. You will go on to construct long, complicated arguments about why you cannot do this, why you must do that. About who you are.

You would be telling me this no matter how you got your power-- grabbing it with violence or lies, paying for it, playing on others' souls for it. You would come to believe that what they said all along was true--no one has power. Everything depends on them, on the others.

I will look out of a window at rows of old tea roses shining green and sleek and fat in the sun. I will watch them form, flower, and wither. I will not listen.