Dr. Auntie’s Rant #37
by Vali Hawkins-Mitchell

I’m ready to start charging you $150 dollars an hour for therapy.

Why? Because that’s what I pay my therapist to listen to me complain about your complaining. And that’s what people pay me to listen to theirs. And it’s been months since your breakup and you’re still acting pitiful. Like it or not, favorite relative or not, you’re getting a lecture. Because your Auntie’s fed up.

Listen. You’re gorging on self-pity. I mean you keep reheating the leftovers of this breakup and it’s getting sad! For weeks you’ve been binging on a fantasy that maybe if you had tried harder it would have changed, or it must be your fault, or you must have misunderstood.

You didn’t. You aren’t confused.

You were tricked. And it hurts. Betrayal is a ravenous bitch who eats innocent trust. She smiles while consuming your spirit, then spits out your hope like stripped bones. Treachery picks her teeth on the skeletons of saints.

It’s a tough learning curve. But it’s better to get this sooner rather than later. Some charming people create elegant looking deceptions hidden behind tasty promises of shared feasts. And before you know it, you’re fast food. A free smorgasbord! Always start with a small trust appetizer instead of giving away your full meal. Take some time.

Young people are hungry. But neediness can summon a love-terrorist who can eat you out of house and home and then leave you to starve. Until here you are, cooking up a batch of poor-me soup and setting a table for a melancholy buffet.

Deception is an insatiable whore. She’s a bait and switch predator. She lures you with sweetness, breaks your heart, then flips blame at you like a Benihana shrimp. She force-feeds you mouthwatering manipulations, gavages you with guilt, and leaves you simmering in a caldron of chaos and confusion.

Listen. With some people, all you have to give is never enough. Ever. Deceit and dishonesty come from an unfathomably dark place. And intentional duplicity’s gaping maw originates from an abyss that cannot be satisfied. Faithlessness is a famished omnivore and infidelity devours everything in its path. That’s soul hunger. And it takes a lot of self-love and work, and probably therapy, to repair that big a hole.

Baby. Before you bungee jump into the next human food truck, I suggest you decide if you are gonna fulfill your own destiny, learn to love yourself, or be someone else’s food.

Vali Hawkins-Mitchell writes from her office across the street from the Honolulu Zoo, where she also works as a trauma and disaster responder. Her writing has appeared in a number of journals, including Sky Island Journal, Star82Review, Blink-ink. For more about Vali, go to valihawkinsmitchell.com.

Photo by Sora Shimazaki.