Too Much and Not Enough

We never thought he was wrong, really. That’s the worst part.
But God, did he make it hard.
He never just... let things go.
Never played along long enough to keep the air light.

I mean, yeah, we said we liked how honest he was.
But only when it wasn’t about us.
Only when he made us feel clever for noticing the cracks we were never going to fix.
He didn’t know how to read the room.
How to take the temperature before setting the fire.

We all agreed on that, silently.

It’s not that we hated him.
We just… couldn’t co-sign what he became.
Too sharp. Too intense. Too direct.
Too unwilling to laugh it off.

He thought truth was a virtue.
But it was a liability.
Especially his truth.
Because it made us look at ourselves.

And when someone makes you feel that bare in public…
You don’t protect them.
You protect yourself.
So that we can maintain the consensus.

He wanted us to stand with him.
But against what? For what?
He never made that part easy.
It wasn’t a hashtag.
It wasn’t a movement.
It was just… him?

And we all knew that he wasn’t enough.

We told ourselves it was love.
That stepping away was helping him "cool down."
That we weren’t abandoning him—we were giving him space.
But really, we just hoped someone would shut him up.

We prayed he’d get fired.
That someone would accuse him of something.
That he’d snap just enough to give us a reason to say, “See? I told you.”
Anything that made us feel better about standing still.

We didn’t need to be right.
We just needed him to be wrong.

And when he wasn’t,
We made him out to be too much.
Too passionate. Too paranoid. Too full of himself.
Too inconvenient.

It wasn’t malice.
It was muscle memory.
We’d rather be wrong together than be seen with someone who’s right alone.

And if he wouldn’t play along—
then we made sure he lost.

Because a mirror only works when you look at it.