Work Text:
For as long as you can remember, it’s engrained in your brain.
Don’t be selfish , they say, it’s not befitting of you .
And you try. You try not to be selfish. You try, you try.
But you can’t help but want.
And then your selfishness burns, and your Father is gone, your Mother a shell.
Suddenly, selfishness is a luxury you can no longer afford.
You give everything in you.
The little food left in the house to your Mother, making sure she doesn’t know. She doesn’t need to see you shaking, drinking water to stop feeling hungry, chewing on the mint leaves you got from the plant on the back porch.
Your time and energy to school, to grades, to teachers, to classmates acquaintances fake friends, until you hardly have any for yourself, to get sleep and rest and play.
To fanciful, stupid dreams, the only bright spot among the rest of the gray, the only selfishness you allow yourself.
By the time Mother is better, it’s too late.
Selflessness is ingrained in you.
The Akademiya encourages it, pushing towards grades and knowledge and group projects, late nights of work, expenses that can barely be afforded. You lean on the lessons of before, drinking too much when the food is too little, pushing concerns away with a smile and a witty remark.
He sees through you all too quickly.
You allow yourself another selfishness.
By the time you realize what you’ve done, it’s too late. You’re attached to the first real friend you’ve had in years.
You have to break it off.
You can’t be selfish.
You’re not allowed to be selfish.
The argument hurts, but it’s better than knowing you’re leeching off of him .
You allow yourself luxuries. It eases the hurt a little, and you pay for it yourself. Expensive tastes , they say, a good eye for quality.
All you can think of is those long days of hunger, of mending your own clothes, of dodging questions when the strap of your sandals broke.
You don’t even realize you’ve let yourself have a selfishness to replace him .
The first selfishness you allowed yourself, starting all those years ago, turns into the Palace. A place practically too fanciful, too wonderful, to be real.
Turns out, it is.
The moment strikes you, that you wish you could just… leave it. Forget it.
But no. This is your mess.
You can’t be selfish, after all.
Everything goes towards the completion. You live just off site, out of a small backpack.
No one notices.
A part of you wishes someone would, but what is the use? What would it do?
You’re just being selfish again.
You allow yourself one final selfishness with the very last of your mora. The Palace finishes that afternoon, and that night, you go to Lambad’s.
The wine is bitter. It feels poetic, in a sense.
He appears. He clearly thinks you’re drunk.
You wish.
You wish you could let yourself be that selfish.
Please. Please, just let me be selfish.
No.
Selfishness doesn’t suit you, Kaveh.
He gives you an offer.
You refuse.
“I can’t be selfish.” You explain, a bitter laugh forcing itself out. The tears that follow it are almost a surprise.
“I can’t be selfish.”
He looks at you as if you’d grown a second head, and takes you home.
You let him do what he wants. Your Mother’s voice, your Father’s voice, rings in your head all the while.
Don’t be selfish.
Selfishness doesn’t suit you.
Selfishness is what led you to this.
You make yourself small, for a while. Useful, until you can get back on your feet. He doesn’t seem to understand.
You don’t try to explain.
That would be selfish, after all. To have someone else understand the voices in your head, the guilt you live with.
The feeling of selfishness every time you think about how you are alive, and your parents are not. Father, dead. Mother, her body alive, but a completely changed person.
“I’m the cuckoo in the robin’s nest.” You explain to him one day, drunk and sobbing.
He doesn’t say anything in argument, just takes you home.
The day you finally explain it to him , you want to drown in your guilt. It is selfish, selfish to want, selfish to–
He stops you.
Thanks you for telling him.
Then tells you that the voices are wrong.
That it was not your fault.
That you are not selfish.
Slowly, slowly, ever, ever so slowly, you learn.
You learn that it is not selfish to want.
You learn that it is not selfish to have.
You learn that it is not selfish to let yourself rest, to take breaks, to say no.
It feels selfish every time.
Guilt takes over every time.
You wonder if you will ever get over that guilt.
And yet, every time.
They pull you out of that mire.
The selfishnesses you allow yourself.
The friends you allow yourself.
Slowly, you learn to be selfish.