It’s nothing special, being good

It’s just being what others expect of you

What they want you to be or make it clear they need

It’s the wide paved open road that leads to being good

So I’m not surprised, quite frankly, when most people are good

It’s the outer edges of humanity, though

Those crystalised forms of pure divinity or fetid evil

That really draw me in and fascinate me

And I will invest in those people I will lay myself bare

Just to get a glimpse of what lies beneath their surface

In a quest to understand them I will often find myself bleeding

Because although most people are good, the ones on the edges

Are always sharpened to fine teeth from being there

And the biting gnaw of their connection to me stings and

I feel all the pain of payment for that understanding I went seeking

It flows out of me and whether or not I intended to I have made

The deal with either the devil or God himself

I’ve taken a bite of the apple of knowledge and now I am cast out of Eden

In the end the outcome is the same because greatness is forged in the same fire as failure

And they are twinned sides of the good coin that makes up humanity

They say never meet your heroes, and from experience I tell you

That this is because the experience is very much like meeting your villains

Because to be good is not to be great and in the end although I do not regret it

I know that I would rather know a single good person than a dozen great ones