I think we all are, in our own ways, thieves. Of course, we all have different methods, different motivations, different spoils. Some of us are more overt than others. Some steal things we can line up on our mantles, others prefer taking more intangible things. We like to loot each other, to pull apart each others’ fabrics for found objects we can tuck away as if they are our own.

At the root of our nature is selfishness. We’re all wide eyes and outstretched arms and grasping fingers when you boil us down at a high enough temperature and strip off the plastic of basic interactions. We’re thieves, complete and total kleptomaniacs who take because to bring something into us makes it a part of us. We’re emotional hoarders who pile up people and moments in the cellars of whatever organ you attribute to attachment until we’ve cluttered it to fire-hazard potential. And there is no way of sorting it into piles and clearing it away because it’s become, at some very basic level, ours.

And so we steal each others’ hearts and we’re taken with each other and we become highwaymen on each others’ paths who wait for the sound of wheels. I’m not saying that we’re merciless or always harmful. I’m just saying that we’re thieves. And we take. Because that’s what thieves do.