An Open Letter to a Liar

Frowning emoji with a long nose and the word “liar” in the upper right corner.

I don’t want you to lie to me. Not anymore, not ever again.

It’s not a question of perspective or points of view. It’s lying and it is a question of harm.

Your untruthing is detrimental to everyone you come in contact with. It’s infectious, degenerative, and deadly, and you just don’t care. No truth vaccine for you.

Don’t tell me things you think I want to hear because you think I can’t handle the truth. Or because it’s more convenient for you to lie.

Don’t gaslight me and tell me that what I’m seeing and feeling and experiencing isn’t true. It is true because I’m living it. Certainly the truth has facets and perspectives, but it can’t turn apples into cows, no matter how many times you moo when baking a pie.

Apples aren’t cows, even when you keep telling me not to believe what I know.

You lie because…what? It’s like breathing? Lies are simply your exhalations.

I don’t want you to lie to me, but I’m realizing you don’t know what truth looks like. How could you - you live on a diet of cruelty and deliberate meanness. Lying is how you survive. How you’ve survived this long.

Don’t say “people say…” as a way to posit some truth. You are people. You’re saying because it helps to craft your narrative. And none of it’s true. We all know it. Do you realize we know the truth? Do you know that we know? It probably doesn’t matter because you believe your own lies, and it’s a wildly dangerous reality for the rest of us to live in.

You lie because you are inherently, organically, at your core, a liar. You are broken. Truth telling is difficult. It requires bravery. It requires integrity. It requires a conscience. None of which are a part of your fabrication. Honesty is too much hard damn work and facing actually reality is a concept you are wildly unfamiliar with.

Don’t lie to me, because I deserve the truth. We’re supposed to be in this together. That’s what it’s supposed to be, it’s what you signed up for, but it isn’t. Because you’re there, on your self-designed pedestal that does’t allow a single beam of light or shred of sincerity to approach even the base of your monument. And me…well I’m over here, with all the rest of the others, exhausting ourselves, all of us trying to parse even the tiniest bit of veracity from the words sliding out of your mouth. To no avail.

I’m aware it isn’t just me. You lie to everyone, yourself most of all. It’s almost sad how little you know or understand. Your life is truly unexamined. Almost sad.

I don’t think you comprehend the weight of your words - what a burden your stories and fables have become. My God, the forced labor of sifting through every single utterance is so, so wearying. And I know, I KNOW, you don’t care. You lack the capacity to care. Your lies reveal you. They reveal your lack.

I know this and so I/we are forced to work, as you dissemble. We have to wait, and filter, and trust ourselves because we can’t trust you.

And so, I sit and I type. This is all the power I have, small as it is. And while I know this letter will never reach you, it’s important for me to write.

I see you, liar.

LB Adams is the CEO of Practical Dramatics, LLC. She is a communication facilitator & public speaking coach, author and keynote speaker.