Doomed.
What should we tell the windows?
The clamor of dreamers in the dark.
Why, why do we drink?
The notes fly into space, wingless.
What time did you wake up this morning?
Half-moons on your skin and mine.
Where do thrown things go?
Kisses, each one harder than the last.
What was your last class again?
The sheets are blank and twisted.
When did you first hear my voice?
Poems, I have realized, are just hands.
Why did I laugh?
The lamp dies in my neglect.
Why did I keep walking?
Tongues are just invitations.
When am I going to need glasses?
Below your ribs are my truths.
How do you treat bruises?
Indecision to touch you.
How is your sore throat?
Names taste like memories.
How would you describe a mistake?
You stand so close to me.
Where did I find you?
Your back, my back. Old friends.
How do I look at you?
Silence of the weary.
How do you look at me?
The moments choose themselves.
Do you look at me?
Between the spaces is eternity.
What is there to look at?
I have you. Had. Sorry.
Do I look at you?
Van Gogh once wrote in a letter: oh my God, it was beautiful.
Yes.
*Yes.

There is no need for maps,
for guides and milestones –
there is only running.

There is only the thought
of ground and feet
and the heartbeat
of falling soles and strings
meeting the hands of the path
and lifting them in temporary flight
towards ahead, wherever it is,
wherever my knees want
to touch and bend against.

There is no need to go a certain way.

There is only running
and dawn on its way
and its hues cutting
across the sky’s skin
like paintbrushes
with razors for caresses.

There is only running
and muscles singing
and humming the language
of drums and claps and slaps.

There is only running:
wind and lost souls
in every step and inhale,
closer, closer, closer.

This is running.
This is all I want.

I have a feeling that if I chop myself into ****** bite-size pieces in front of them, they will grab the knife and butcher me themselves. They are sure they can do it better. I am, too. When I can no longer hide the fractures and I start crumbling, they will grab a sledgehammer and bury it inside me.

I am proficient at silences.

It turned me into this. It made scales out of my skin, yet for some reason it has also ripped into my flesh. Is it trying to protect me or **** me? It stole the light from my fingertips and the curves from around my tongue. It gave me the power of flight. It strengthened my legs and hardened my feet.

Now I am both safe and dead. I am empty of luminescence and I have razors between my teeth. I fly often these days, most of the time above the clouds.

Now I have strong knees and firmly placed toes. I am good at walking away now.

I can't count the number of times I've blamed it for the things I have left. Over and over, it forces me to make choices I have always refused to make - for good reason.

I can't count the number of times I have walked away because it forced me to, but I remember every single instance when I walked away when I didn't have to.

And until now, I am not sure which was my biggest mistake.

You laugh, and I think:
*this is what I left.

inevitable
that we leave and we are left -
and that we let them.

You missed—
        so you stopped trying.
                  
I missed—
                     I still do.

How horribly sad
that all you left are your ghosts -
and they haunt me still.

I want to believe that I am not nothing. That I am a conflagration struggling against the crushing darkness. That I am a flare of light, ephemeral and inconsequential but brilliant and visible, nonetheless. I want to believe that I am not the monster I have always feared. That I have weaving fingers and unwavering hands that hold and cradle and carry. That my shoulders have known tears and my tears have known shoulders. I want to believe that I am not a desecrated ruin that can only weather the storm by staying dead and broken. That my glass innards are fractured and unwhole but form colored spider webs from shades of my blood. That my parched skin is merely paper begging for the taste of ink. That there is a story waiting to be written. That there is someone willing to write it. I want to believe that I am a survivor. That I can break and topple and crumble into shambles and rise five minutes later and keep walking without looking back. That I am not hollow inside. That I am not a completely horrible creature. That I float on hurricanes.

I want to believe that I am capable of these things.

I want someone to believe that I am capable of these things.

I want someone to know that I want to believe in these things.

I want to tell someone a story. A story about fire and monsters and hands and hugs and buildings and glass and writers and towers and hurricanes. A story about believing.

But there is one thing I want more than anything—

I want to be a story.

I am crippled
and cursed
with the inability
to feel anything
less
than
this.

There's a certain chord
that thrums in the same wavelength
of sonorous solitude.
It is more of a quiver than a vibration
like a bird's wing trapped
in the half-inch between the tips
of a boy's thumb and index finger.

I hear the sound of
repressed struggles and imprisoned words
like a bottle of soda shaken, shaken

hiss.

It sounds something
like the clink of glass shards
swept into a forgotten corner
or the whistle of labored breaths
ebbing against the sandpaper lining
inside the throat
or the atomic scream
of dust corpuscles settling
on top of cardboard boxes filled with
nostalgia for the unattainable.

I know this sound, this song.
I hear it in the flutter of your eyelashes
the murmurs of your fingers
across my skin
the unspoken lying between your teeth
forcing their way to the corners of your mouth
your smile.

This is the sound of a divine choir
when heaven
collapses.

Disfigured
Trapped in her mind
Prisoner of shackles twice as big as her wrists
Not
quite
free.

I sift through a sea of pebbles—coarse grit and polished faces. This is how it feels to touch memories that have long faded—photographs with white edges and yellow corners. Perhaps here in this infinitesimal rivulet of cumulated sand, perhaps here I once was in hell. My skin remembers these tiny details—the claw-like pinpricks of granule and stone as they swim into the gaps of my fingers. And here come the worn but smooth edges.

Longing for the past should not be called anticipation, but it paints the back of my throat with the taste of salt and sugar and leaves. But the long winding path leading to more pebbles is masked by the ceaseless onslaught of undertow, fascia rippling as if shaken by quakes not just of the earth.

I wait for the tide to calm, for obscurity of undulation to halt. I am still waiting. I want to see what is beyond. I will touch the images from before as if they have tangible form. I can still taste the sea.

But I want to see what the rest of the river is like. I want to know the future.

Crippling chaos
ceaseless and wearying

Cliffs cave in
collapse into the hungry sea

Create confounding cages
cold in a furnace
conflagrating in a blizzard
contort into a cavern
capable, perhaps, of crumbling
chiseled into its fated form
cascade along the corners

cry desperation
curse the distance and
choose to—

cut and
close

Black
Shriveled
Flaking at the edges
Crumbling into a shipwreck
crashed far too many times
      into someone else's shore
Walls are peeling off the collapsing interior
      the paint is scratched with claws
Not enough pillars, not enough strength
      Samson's arms are long broken
Blood forms blades
Ribs remain cages, prisons
Curling into a fist
Knocking on someone else's heart

It's a door
     that will never open.

Bring a stone for our feet
and we'll study the contours of our bodies
with fingers grappling like tenterhooks
Dig our palms into bared flesh
and we will spill laughter from our mouths
down our collars, our throats
like spirited red wine
I will lose my foothold to run my toes
across your ankles

And with hilarity
staining our clothes
your arms will collar me to you
So when your lips find mine
we will tumble to the embrace of the rippling sea

And kiss
and breathe
underwater.

“A man who lies to others is a liar, but a man who lies to himself is a fool.”

So call me a fool. Call me vulnerable, fragile, tainted, shattered, jaded, cynical. I would rather lie to myself than let you in, because I am not known for my bravery, and I never will be. Call me a coward. Call me proud, selfish, bitter, angry, sad, damaged. I would rather take the easy way out, because there is no way I will tear down walls I’ve built for years just for you. I am not that strong. Call me weak. Call me blind, deaf, senseless, foolish, ignorant, insane. I would rather be alone, because it is safe and secure and familiar, and because the sadness of it has become an integral part of me—I wouldn't know how to live without it. Call me pathetic. Call me defeated, lonely, haughty, rejected, triumphant, defeated, defeated, defeated.

I want to forget the sound of your voice. I want to forget your hands, your fingertips. I want to forget your face, your smile, your laughter.

I want to forget the color of your eyes.

Let us
teach the stars how to dance
guide the constellations into a lemniscate
bend their chaotic lines
trace different paths for them.

Let me
decorate the ballroom with shadows
drape the night against the walls
scatter moonlight across the floor
feed our guests cosmic dust

And you will
buy me a dress of starlight
wear a suit of midnight
touch me the way you would a moonstone
take me to the celestials.

Let us
dance the night away.

I wonder
about the silence between
your words
I want
to hear your laughter
even then
I think
it's the closest thing to heaven
I can have

I wonder
about the empty spaces
inside me
I want
to fill them with cosmos
with you
I think
it's the closest thing to happiness
I can have

I wonder
about the distance between
each star
I want
to walk every line in every constellation
with you
I think
it's the closest thing to eternity
we can have.

Delight
cowers from the monolith of
Fear

Joy
shrinks from the vise of
Fear

Hope
Dissipates from the jaws of
Fear

Heart
reshapes into
Fear

Courage
is just ignored
Fear

Everything
I am
is made of
Fear.

Philo—
not enough
too much
of jaded edges
too much
of glass shards
too much
light
not enough
to heal
Statues are worn
by the scorn
of heavens
Philo—
The look in his eyes
Philo—
Every time he laughs
Philo—
The sunlight blinds
my broken eyes
Philo—
There is no right side
in a war
Philo—
Only pain
and peace
and fear
Philo—
The deadliest wars
aren't fought
in battlefields
Philo—
Everyone
Everything
hurts
Philo—
His absence.
His silence.
His.
His.
His—
Phobia.

See my smile
snap like a twig
hear the sound
of cackling splinters
mirth as if in mockery
of the way
my laughter breaks
every time I remember
litanies repeated
beneath closed wrists
closed eyes
closed
Knock on the frown
of my mask
I wish you would
just
knock
See my fingertips
trace the lightning
that separates
my irises
Dry as the cracked
ground of my lips
Let me bleed
on my own
water the pit
of my stomach
See me bleed
See
me
Let me
just bleed
on
you.

He—
    Quiet as sorrow
    Screaming the distance between us
    Taut as a bowstring

He—
    Thunderbolt unravels me.

Who am I?

My name is want
an eternal curse
embedded into
sunken skin and
chipped fingernails
and flaking paint
on the walls
living at the bottom
of empty bottles
festering in open wounds
like dust and grit
like an infection.

Who am I?

My name is need.
a silent howl
resonating in oblivion
an echoing quiet
trapped in cages
crafted from skeletons and skulls
warnings and red signs
denial, denial
and stark, raging fear
breaking bridges
of teeth and throats.

I crumble like broken rocks
melt like glaciers
fall apart into strings of muscle
and hollowed bones
My paper skin tears asunder
like a discarded love letter
Blades of eyelashes
dig into closed eyelids
pry open sealed pupils
flay apart glass irises
Dissolve dying stars
into the lines of my palms
sink cosmos into the riverbed
of my veins
and shackled wrists
Wind ribbons of twine
around my throat
Crown my breast with thorns
Crucify your name on my tongue
Carve your touch into my hips
Strangle my waist with the vise
of your hands
Sew my hair into the gaps
of your fingers
and I'll sew yours into mine
And finally
unravel me
with poetry
and paint me
on your skin.

Ethereal
in form and name
with fog as flesh
and breaths
the color of haunted
smiles and cries
clothed in wails
and hollow screams
that fill this hazy emptiness
empty, empty
I am empty
Where do I find
a heart
tell me, tell me
Tell me I am real
not just a fragile
figment of imagination
to be captured
imprisoned in my own thoughts
I am already captured
imprisoned, emptied
carved into a marble shell
pretty, pretty masks
hiding nonexistent expressions
concealing glass eyes
broken, broken
I am not yet broken
there is nothing left of me
My name is a forgotten relic
But I hope you'll look for my grave.

Contained
lightning cuts across
the tongue
sears through flesh
and traps the silent
screams
in the bottle
with a red seal
warning, warning
of thunderstorms
that clamor for
release
from the throat
with glass shards
cutting, cutting
through veins
that ***** ink into
paper
which hungers
for the rumbling clouds
waiting, waiting
for the bottle cap to pop
and shatter into
raindrops
the earth quakes
awaiting by the precipice
shaking, shaking
until the final jump
into an eternal arch, down to the
ravine.

Blue
is the color of the mid-morning sky
dotted with the white
of lumpy clouds
with rainstorms in their bellies
Soon the blue
of the smiling horizon
will be gray.

Blue
is the color of the open sea
swathed in undulations
of the ebbing waves
with destruction in their fingertips
Soon the blue
of the endless waters
will be a fist.

Blue
is the color of a bruise
shaded with the subtle purple
of failing light
with darkness crawling through the edges
Soon the blue
of abandoned rage
will be everywhere.

Sloth
The idyll which is deadly
to the transient mind
Aloft in the empty desire
to take nary a single step
to refuse oneself
to do nothing

Gluttony
The uncontrollable want which is deadly
to the fickle body
Drowning in irrational need
to consume
to devour oneself
until there is nothing left

Greed
The desperate craving which is deadly
to the unsatisfied palm
Reveling in destructive yearning
for things not needed
for things impossible to have
until rich with nothing

Lust
The mindless drive which is deadly
to the sinful being
Swamped in instinctive sensuality
of the pleasuring flesh
of the touching skin
until thoughts are nothing

Envy
The reined malice which is deadly
to the defenseless heart
Unseeing in the loathing for others' triumph
as the resentment festers
as the bitterness thrives
until the bloodstream is nothing but poison

Wrath
The burning rage which is deadly
to the peaceful soul
Cowering behind the crimson mask
of latent fear
of suppressed weakness
until nothing but hatred exists

Pride
The lofty eye which is deadly
to the humble person
Flying above the breathing clouds
above the fabric of reality
above heaven's brilliance
until the sky falls

until the earth is nothing.

See, here you are less than real
A hollow shell of winter's breath
encasing you in a blanket of stars
Perhaps you are farther
than I thought

See, here you cannot hear me
My voice is my grip
And I'm losing it
Perhaps I'm the one in the vise
and you're already gone

See, here you cannot feel me
There are serenades in my touch
I wish you'd notice
Perhaps the grief on my fingertips
is all you have

See, here you are oblivious
Trapped beneath a sea of ice
with the sky collapsing on you
Perhaps you are no more
And I'm just a fool

See, here you cannot be mine
The silence of oblivion is your embrace
Will you listen to the ballads in my curses?
Perhaps you cannot leave, either
And I'm on the precipice

See, you are my breath
You are my prison
You are my only freedom
Perhaps I should just walk away
But I am
       waiting

                   for your
                          heartbeats
                                    to come
                                                back.

See us at our worst
while we are shooting rifles at the stars
cutting our teeth on razor blades
opening smiles on each other's skin
See us, scorn us, for we are mad indeed

Tell us what you think
that we are broken glass
And what is broken cannot be fixed
by something just as broken
Tell us, scorn us, for we are hopeless indeed

Loathe us for what we have
for our ability to walk on the path
of a crashing meteor
to fly without wings, without loneliness
Loathe us, scorn us, for we have something beautiful indeed

Madness, hopelessness, and beauty
weaved into an artless pattern
pulling at a rainbow of threads
forming knots amid chaos after chaos
For we are wild forests and flowers and greenery

And we choose no more
We choose no less
We are right where we want to be
Floating in uncharted galaxies
until there is only us.

From the earth's praying face
Sprouts a seedling of sacred verses
Rising to heaven's eye with grace
Are boughs shielding debris of curses

Holding hands beneath dappled sunlight
Same blood alight in different veins
Witness sin and devotion in an eternal fight
With something to pray for, see what He gains

Sing His song for we are the fruits of His trees
Bend with the wind as one and listen to his call
For a family together going down on their knees
Is how good stories end; in sweetest downfall.

I'm keeping you
I'll put you on a pedestal
On a footstool
Or a pillar
Or a glass case

I'll keep you in a treasure chest
Or a closet
Or a vault
Or a secret chamber
behind a painting

I'll have you on my rooftop
Or on the peak of a mountain
Or above my head
Or on the clouds
just float on the face of the sky

And if you'll have me
You can keep me on the ground
Or on a canyon
Or on the sea
we'll never swim ashore

You can put me on a marble stand
Or on a column
Or on the edge of a cliff
If you'll have me
I'm here to be kept

The traditional story has a beginning and an ending. Between these two are strife and conflict and dragons and witches and handsome knights and beautiful princesses. The middle, they say, is the heart of the story, the journey which rises or declines to the ending. This is where the carefully crafted beginning is torn asunder, where valiant heroes attempt to stitch it back together, where most of the time it only ends up flayed further open like a wound.
Or an unread letter. Or a broken fist. Or shattered chains. Or dying stars.
And.
And it is the storyteller's choice how it ends. Whether they all live happily ever after or they all become nothing but windswept ashes. Most of the time the story is just beginning, middle, and end—not necessarily in that order. One will never know how it really ends.
And.
And that is the happiest end to any story. Start with the middle, continue with the end, and end with the beginning. End with the knight on the dragon's back screaming a war cry, or with the princess locked up in the tower, or with the witch falling asleep. End with a sentence cut into a phrase, with an invisible ellipsis, and no 'The End'.
One will look at a universe of different endings. Here is a galaxy of sadness, here is a solar system of bitterness, look, there's a star drawing its first breath, perhaps this is happiness. It will be like looking at the vast expanse of the sky and seeing stories written in the clouds, in the silhouette of mountains with their hunched backs telling a different ending of their own.
You will see a princess in every woman, a knight in every man, goodness in a grain of sand.
Or a drop of rain. Or a blade of grass. Or a pebble in the riverbed.
And.
And they will say you are a dreamer, disillusioned by forestalled endings, but dreamers are the happiest people in the world. They live in captured moonlight, thrive on dappled sunlight, see emeralds in leaves and gold in autumn's touch. They fly in oceans and float on tempests. They walk on treetops and ride horses crafted from twigs to the burning sunset.
This is a world of endings.
And endings are always the best part of the story. And if it remains unknown, all the better.
Look here, at the ink that traces every letter of every word, dancing with utmost gaiety like a raptor in unbound flight. Swooping down, down, down, and spiraling up, up, up, gliding through the clouds, resting in the breeze like an eyelash on the cheek.
Look here. The ending is nowhere.
The ending is everywhere.
But look here, at this words, because this is a story that will never, ever end, only swirl in eternity like ink in water, billowing like, perhaps, a valiant knight's cape as he perches on top of the dragon, roaring a war cry along with the beast, while the witch falls asleep, and the princess waits in her tower.
Look. Or read. Or stare. Or write.
And.
And so they lived…

The time for brooding is over
Let them say I invented the stars
when they were born
That I weaved the fabric of the universe
while I remained awake at night
Let them see that I'm no longer suffering

For tears are no more than mist
And my irises are the color of laughter
Laughter which I crafted from sunlight
So they can say that I breathe tempests
And spring's flower petals float in my bloodstream
Let them see I'm more than what I was

For the sky is the face of unraveled smiles
Where masks are shattered shards
And truth is blatant on heaven's eye
Now they can say I am true
That I am in every blade of grass
And every pebble on the riverbed

So now let them say what they want
For they can see
I have been my own nightmares
Just as now I am my own dreams.

It's late afternoon
The sky bleeds purple
As buildings claw at its fabric
December breathes coldly
And I feel them as if they are tempests
I can see every crack on the pavement
Hear the footsteps of the ebbing crowd
As if they are thunderclaps
I feel all
And they are all mine
I am awake

It's evening
Streetlamps flicker like flames
The houses are dead silent
And what my gaze befalls is my own
But I am nothing and everything
The horizon is but a blanket
Of a little piece of the universe
Sometimes it feels good to be small
So that the world will be but a giant blur
As if in a dream
I am sleeping

It's finally night
The most beautiful face of the day
For every time I close my eyes
I scatter jewels beneath my eyelids
I paint the silver crescent of the moon on the dome of my skull
And I find peace in the dark where others find fear
In the absence of heaven's eye
Angels sing me to sleep with cherubic lullabies
While my mind grasps at the vastness of the universe
And I have found the greatest escape
I am alive.

It's quiet.
This is the only happy I will ever be.

My blood is ink
And my heart is an empty inkwell

So. You've decided to go on a journey to hurt yourself. The road will be ****** and gory, brambles of thorny vines will grab you and strangle you like a vise. But I will be here to guide you on how to make yourself bleed, either literally or metaphorically. Trust me—I have a doctorate in masochism, and I have formulated 9 simple steps to assist you in your personal quest to become unhappy.

Step one. Do something bad. Do something people would never expect you to do. Do something shockingly horrible. The worse, the better. Talk about your loyal friends behind their backs and make sure they're eavesdropping. Punch the nicest person you know in the face. While an old woman is crossing the street unassisted except for her fragile walking stick, kick it from beneath her trembling grip and walk away without looking back. Tell your mother you're a *******. Slit your wrists in front of your parents.

Step two. Hate yourself. If you have done step one splendidly, I'm sure you'll do fine with this one. Convince yourself you're a despicable creature, not worth calling a human being, and wallow in self-pity. Sit on a throne of shattered beer bottles and drown in liquor, screaming odes to your repulsive self. Behold the snide looks directed your way and revel in them. Know that you don't deserve to live. You will fear death, though. Fret not, this is perfectly normal at the early stages of your journey to hurting yourself.

Step three. Let others talk about you. People will notice the change in you. They will then talk among themselves, wondering where the old 'you' has gone. Let them chatter, let them speak. Don't tell them the truth—that you have killed the old 'you' because you want to get hurt, you want to bleed. Don't tell them you hate yourself more than they do. Be aloof and indifferent. If you already are, congratulations! You are now apathetic and pathetic. Don't be alarmed, this is all part of self-hate.

Step four. Isolate yourself completely. Leave your loving parents and let them know you hate them while you're at it. Put your phone away, don't check your Facebook, and hole up somewhere unforgiving and depressing. Lock yourself in a gray room, starve yourself, deprive yourself of the things you can't live without, stay isolated to the point of almost losing your sanity. Convince yourself you deserve all of this. Lie to yourself if you have to. You have already began your own ruin. Why stop now?

Step five. After a long, long time of isolation, get out of your hiatus. Look at your phone and see it empty of messages. Don't despair, you did this to yourself. Check your Facebook, stare at the lack of notifications and don't wonder what happened to your 'friends.' Get out of your shell, look at the mirror. Recognize the monster you've shaped out of your flesh and blood, behold your creation in bitterness, and remember what you used to be. Remember when you weren't so keen on hurting yourself. Remember and wonder why you decided to. Then hate the monster in the mirror, because this isn't you, this isn't what you wanted to be. Know that you are a terrible creature.

Step six. Fall in love. Fall desperately in love with someone who can't see what you have become. Hold him/her tight, shape your shrunken heart into something that will cradle your love. Let yourself feel joy for the first time. Realize that you have made a terrible mistake in deciding to hurt yourself and the people around you. Let it dawn upon you that you want love, you want this, you want happiness. Experience heaven, and remember that your love can't see what you have become.

Step seven. Reveal yourself. Let them try to change you, let them fail. Let your love see the horrible creature you really are. Hurt the ones you love and relish it. Let them know you are no longer the same. Watch them turn their back on you, watch them walk away. Watch your love step back in horror, watch him/her leave you. Let them break you, let them leave you dying, choking on a garrote you fashioned out of your own blood, let them give up on you. Let them forget what you used to be before you decided to hurt yourself.

Step eight. Regret every decision you've made. Despair, fear, rage, flail in a prison you built out of your hollow bones. Feel all those negative emotions, know that they are all gifts you've given yourself. You didn't know what you got yourself into.

Step nine. Calm yourself. Realize that after the turbulence you feel nothing at all. Search your soul, scrutinize your thoughts and emotions until you realize you are nothing but a black hole. You are empty. Congratulations! You have succeeded in hurting yourself in the worst way possible! I will now be unavailable for further assistance. Welcome to your personal hell.

Good luck getting out of it.

Dear heart. I am the one in charge here. Neuroscience has long taken the responsibility of handling emotions from you. I am in charge of everything in this body, dear heart, I tell you what to do, and you do it. I think we both know I'm the better thinker here.

So why must you ache, why must you suffer for what I do? For every scalding thought you recoil in your cage and pound on the bars of your prison, wishing to be worn on someone's sleeve, dear heart, you've been hidden for too long. You don't know how this world works, and I do, so you must obey me when I tell you what to do. I know it hurts to keep beating despite of how the chemical reactions in my mind may affect you. For every feeling I take as a thought, every thought you mistake as a feeling, we both protest. For a long, long time we refuse to communicate with each other and I know you are tempted to rest, to stop beating because you're the one aching. It's not me, dear heart, that clenches like a fist, crumples inward like a useless scrap of paper, collapses on itself like a star on the brink of a supernova, it is not me, dear heart, that gets hurt.

Why do I only ache when I'm facing a mathematical problem, a complex theory, a questionable logic, a memory-loss crisis, why do I only suffer when I think really hard, even though I am the one in charge of emotions and feelings? Why is it you, not me, that a knife buries itself in when there is emotional pain? Why is it you that has be shredded into blood strings and crimson feathers of sinew, as if you were plucked from an angel's bleeding wings while heaven screeched its protest? Why are you the only one that is punished?

Dear heart, I am sorry. I didn't know why the body is made this way, that you have to be the one on the edge of a cliff while I sit somewhere safely plucking your strings. You are the one facing the endless plummet into a chasm of fangs and jagged rock, and it is up to me to make sure you stay alive, why, dearest, dearest heart do you have to be shackled to me with a silken collar? I can control you, but you have the freedom to fall, and if you do, I will be the one to grab at a protruding edge somewhere on the face of the cliff, and I will pull hard to get us back up.
Because if I don't, we will both die, and I'm the thinker here, I'm the one responsible for both of us, dear heart, I am the one in charge here!

You won't survive on your own. That's why I'm here to take care of us, because neither of us would exist without the other, without me you will be dead, without you, I will be worse than dead, so dear heart. Dearest heart, let me take the reins, let me hold the strings, let me tell you what to do, I'm sorry you can't be free. I'm sorry I hurt you with the thoughts and the memories inside me.

Let me control you. Let them call me abusive, let them call me terrible, let them call me cold and cunning, let them tell the world I am foul and violent, I don’t care!
I am here for you. I will take care of you. And when all you wish is to cease the wearying repetition of living, I will give you reason to keep breathing.