when i first realised i liked you, i was afraid to accept it. it was scary  ---  i had only known you for a little while, but just the thought of meeting you would bring a smile to my face. when i first thought about telling you, i didn't know i would ever be brave enough to. when i did actually tell you how i felt, i was at a low point. i didn't care anymore, i just knew you needed to know.
you didn't deserve what i did to you, even if we didn't get too far  ---  i know i broke your heart. you got drunk and you talked about it ; somehow i knew to listen. but i need you to know that it really, truly, was not your fault. i ran away. i was too busy pining after someone else, someone who used to constantly be there, someone i was helplessly missing like a piece of my soul was gone  ---  someone who was gone, who is gone, just like you are. someone whose name is engraved in my being. i loved him. i never told him. not really.
so, even if it hurts you, i know you'll understand. even if you're still angry with me for what i did  ---  i know you understand.
you'll understand that i ran away because we were getting close, so close to being something more, to being really together. and it was innocent ; it was beautiful. it was also too fast, and it scared me. it made me feel good, but in a nostalgic way. i can't explain it, i just knew  ---  i'd have to run from this happiness, because i'd been living with sadness and loneliness for so long, and they were the only constant i knew. i'd have to pretend this was a mistake, that it didn't mean anything to me. just so i could avoid hurting you. i realized, too late, that that is exactly what i did.
when i first stopped talking to you  ---  entirely, without any explanation, i couldn't sleep for weeks. the thought of how confused you must be, how hurt, how betrayed that i broke my promise  ---  it haunted me, followed me around all the time. at one point, i realized it was better that way. pushing you away felt like the right thing to do, even though i knew explaining would work better.
but, you see  ---  you never once visited me in my dreams. i thought i could forget him, fall for you instead. but i couldn't. we were almost lovers, you and i  ---  i will not forget that. almost seems to be the only thing that happens to me. and just like everything else, it wasn't strong enough for me. it wasn't lasting. it wasn't devastating.
so i ran.
i need you to know this  ---  i am sorry. i'll never stop being sorry for doing this to you, but i also know that it was better for me to do it. i burned you, but it wasn't as badly as it would have been if i'd let you fall in love with me and then up and left. he did that. i know how much more it would hurt you, and me, if i turned into him. i hope you don't hate me, and if you ever find this, i hope you do understand.

i.*      i have such anger inside me,
it's slowly but surely crept up on me from the day i was born. it's made a home in my bones, cracked open my skull and filled it with the horrors of a broken perception of the world.
ii.      i have such hatred inside me,
once towards myself, twice towards my mother. three times towards what she's turned me into. i am trying so hard not to fall into this abyss of rage, of toxicity, that seems to greet me every time i look into the mirror and see her reflection instead of mine. i've broken the glass twice this week already.
iii.      i wish i could control it.
i wish it had some kind of off-switch, so i wouldn't be forced to walk around with bleeding knuckles all the time. i know violence isn't an answer to any problem, but it sure as hell feels like it when i can only see red and the wall is *right there.
iv.      it's always there,
at the back of my mind. in the cigarette smoke swirling around me, burning my eyelids as i try to keep it all in. it's brought me to tears more times than i can count, and i just want it  ---  i need it to stop.
v.      i am afraid one day i won't want it to stop anymore.
i am afraid one day i will let it consume me, change me, shape me into the monsters from my nightmares, from under my bed. i am afraid one day it will steal my voice and make me do things that the real me would never even think of doing. and when that day comes, i will not fear nor grieve anymore. i will just be angry. i will just be violent. i will just be scary.
vi.      i will be a result.
of the hatred and anger and wrath nested deep inside my heart, i will be the darkest, worst version of myself, and i will not care. i will be a result of all the times she's raised a hand to hit me, i will be a result of all the times i have wanted to bash her face in but never could, never did  ---  because i was too innocent. i will be a result, and i will have blood on my hands.

i want to talk about it.
i want to be able to talk about it,
i want to stop my insides from turning every time i think about it.

i try to wash it off my hands, off my tongue, off my mind.
but it's there,
it's always there.

and it haunts my dreams.
i can taste the ashes of the fires which used to burn inside me.
i can feel them burning my insides.

only, they don't burn with confidence, excitement,
grace.
they burn with hatred and anger, all directed at myself.

it is the only thing i can feel lately.
it's kind of comforting, in a very disturbing way.
it's like killing myself without even trying.

like the universe wants this to be over,
even more so
than i do.

when i told my friend that my new boyfriend loved sports and going out; partying, being loud and obnoxious, she grimaced and said she didn't know why i even liked him. i got angry with her - why did she not trust my gut?

i once told her that opposites attract, so we should be fine. we should have been.

but then came the fighting over little things, then came the mutual devaluation of each other's interests, then came the nights spent on the couch instead of in bed,  his drinking. he would always take the books from my hands and throw them across the wall - *******, he called them. he'd always say i lived in my head, that i never gave him the attention he deserved, that he would take a ******* instead of me any time. and at some point, he had me loathing him more than i did myself.

yet, at the same time, i still loved him. it was like an addiction - i knew he was bad for me, but i clung onto him like he was air and i couldn't breathe. there were nights when i really couldn't.

sometimes it felt like he still loved me, too. when he came to the locked bathroom door and cried with me; apologizing over and over again. at those moments my love for him would crawl out of its cave - my heart - covered in blood, battered, bruised, but still standing. and it would hold him, whispering false truths in his ear. i would always forgive him, because opposites attract. it was just the way he was, he couldn't do anything about it.

even if he could, i frequently thought i didn't want him to. not because i was content with his violent outbrusts and alcoholism, or what he put me through on a daily basis - no. because i loved him, regardless of all the pain he caused me. and love means to accept someone for who they are.

but i came to realize that love is quite finite when all negative things seem infinite.

i hated the way we were so different. where i would sit in one place for hours on end, he'd walk around clumsily, breaking things, screaming, slamming doors.

he drove me mad. and, don't get me wrong, i am not a saint. i'm sure i did the same to him. maybe it's my fault that he turned out the way he did - perhaps if he had chosen to live with someone else, his smiles would still be kind rather than cruel. perhaps if i had changed for him - if i was more like him, we would have been okay. but my silence was deafening. i was convinced he didn't deserve to hear my voice. and he didn't, for days. sometimes he asked if i was pretending to be a ghost of what we used to be. i started questioning my previous way of thinking. do opposites really attract?

and i came to a conclusion. they really do. opposites attract, but they are not always good for each other. i had to learn that the hard way.

and just like a ghost, i faded. i left.