I WILL ALWAYS BE A LIAR
when the performance becomes the person
I will always be a liar.
Not the kind who invents elaborate fictions
or fabricates entire lives.
The subtler kind.
The kind who learned early
that truth is a luxury
most people can't afford to hear.
So I mastered the art of saying nothing honestly
"I'm fine" when I'm fracturing.
"It doesn't matter" when it's the only thing that does.
"I'm happy for you" when envy tastes like copper.
These aren't lies, we tell ourselves.
They're manners.
The oil that keeps everything
running smoothly between people
too afraid to admit what they actually think.
But here's what I've learned:
Everything lies.
Your face lies when you smile through fury.
Your body lies when it says yes but means no.
Memory lies
it's just edited footage,
director's cut, best angles only.
Even love lies.
It promises forever.
Delivers until it doesn't.
Then rewrites the story
so the ending feels inevitable.
We are built entirely
from strategic omissions
and performance art
we've mistaken for personality.
I've told so many versions of myself
depending on who's listening,
what they need,
what I need them to believe
that I've lost track
of which one was real.
Maybe none of them.
Maybe all of them.
Maybe the self is just
the lie we tell most consistently.
Here's the part that keeps me up:
I don't know if I'm lying to you
or if I've become the lie so completely
that this is the truth now.
The performance calcified into identity.
The mask fused to the face.
And when I'm alone
truly alone,
no audience, no mirror, no witness
I still don't know who I am.
Because I spent so long
being what everyone needed
that the original blueprint
has been painted over too many times to recover.
You want honesty?
Here it is:
I will always be a liar
because I don't know how to be anything else.
The truth is a room I locked myself out of.
I lost the key somewhere
between who I was
and who I had to become
to survive being seen.
So when I say "I love you"
believe me.
Or don't.
I'm not sure it matters.
I'm not even sure I know what those words mean
beyond the shape my mouth makes
when I want you to stay.
And maybe that's the most honest thing I've said all year:
I want you to stay.
Even if it's for the wrong version.
Even if she's a fiction.
Even if I'm just the most convincing lie
I've ever told.


God Sofiaa this spoke to me on such a heavy level. I can relate so wholeheartedly. Such a beautiful piece 🤍🤍
This resonates with me a lot. Thank you!