<aside> ⛓️
—**it is to be shackled by fear.
</aside>
The hand that tightens around another’s throat does not belong to the strong. It belongs to the desperate. The terrified. The small. ****
Strength does not twist narratives, does not clutch at the fragile strings of perception.
True power has **no need ***to ***deceive.
Control is an illusion, the fever dream of the powerless.
The one who schemes, who bends the will of others through deceit and coercion, is not their master… He is their captive.
*His ****existence is pinned to ****their reactions, ***his sense of self handcuffed to their obedience.
<aside>
Because outside of their gaze, he is nothing.
</aside>
Not in the poetic sense. Not in the tragic, existential way. ****
Literally.
Without an audience, he ceases to exist. A shadow that vanishes in the absence of light. And the people he deceives?
—Strangers. Always.**
Because you cannot get close to anyone when you do not exist. You do not form bonds. You do not *create meaning. You *do not leave a mark.
You pass through people like a ghost,
*****unacknowledged beyond the ***performance,
unseen beyond the act.
But here’s the irony— he doesn’t even deceive them. Not really.
He assumes he does, believes himself clever, untouchable, a master of the unseen strings—
—But the truth is far worse.
<aside>
They never see through the mask
—not because it is flawless,
but because it is irrelevant.
</aside>
<aside>
They do not care. They never did. They never will.
</aside>