I do not love you in the most common sense of the word.

I do not love you softly with doe eyes and tender kisses.
I do not love you bravely, for there is nothing brave in my actions or words to you.
I do not love you kindly or sweetly, gently or patiently, considerately or reservedly.

I love you like a storm was loosed on my entire being from my first glimpse of you.
I love you like a match loves to be struck, or like a nail loves a hammer.
I love you like a page loves being scarred by the ink of a pen,
and I love you like a pick loves being scraped across old strings over and over again.

I love you violently, and entirely. But, most of all, secretly.

I love you scorchingly and searingly, as if all the pretty words you've ever bestowed upon me were mere kindling.

I love you like an atom must love the universe, a thing by the grace of which it exists, but a thing also which it couldn't possibly ever grasp.

I love you behind my heart and behind my eyes, to shield such a vulnerable thing from the corrosion and harsh grinding of the world.

I love you brokenly, and bitterly, and for always, because I will not admit to loving you at all.

I like you best when you're wrecked and gorgeous.

When your eyes are bright with excitement and half-lidded from drink.
When you're writing hot checks with all the words you'd never say otherwise.

I like you best when your cheeks are flushed and your bottom lip looks like I've just bitten it.

When the words that fall from it are fantastical and outlandish.
When you ask me things like "Will you be my post-apocalypse bride?!" and tell me with slurred and hurried speech that I have the best taste in music.

I like you best when it looks like touching your skin would burn the prints from my fingers.

When you introduce me to the people you call family with liquid pride and wildly exaggerated tales of my heroic deeds.
When I'm not just a nod of your shaggy locks and a tilt of your glass.

These are the times when I can forget the awful nagging voice in my head,
the one that says "Never, never, never"
Because everything about you is tinged with "It could happen any moment now."

You fade...
Like a bruise.

Like the ones your mouth left on my neck and shoulders with its lustful pressure.
Your teeth, which brought moments of bright pain/pleasure,
Are now bared in an artificial, animal smile.

Your lips, which parted to ******* skin like it was salvation,
Barely part now to speak to me.
You whispered my name like a prayer.
You screamed it like a curse.
You sighed it in contentment,
And now you won't even speak it in passing.

Your hands, which half-playfully pulled my hair...
Now won't pause to brush it from my face.

All these parts of you,
None more telling than your eyes.
Those new windows, which once let me pry...
Now have blinds drawn tight behind them,
Leaving only a pretty, shiny reflection-
A passing, glancing imitation-
Of the passion they once held
When they beheld
Me.

No color left to them but the muddy colors of
Boredom,
And possibly mistrust.

You fade...
Like a bruise.
Like the one you left on my mind with your brilliant conversation
And beautiful, rusty prose.
Like the many you left on my tongue...
Which now can speak nothing but trite and meaningless words,
Which now can barely remember the shapes
Of all the shimmering, liquid phrases it spoke to you
That seemed so important at the time.

You fade...
Like a bruise.
Once lover and friend,
Now barely one
And never the other again.