I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

the leaves are rustling outside of my bedroom window, kissed half with sweet sunlight, and half with death.

the branches, broad, and bows dancing, twinkle the leaves; entrancing.

the roots are deep, steadfast, and true.
unlike the man I thought I knew.

I can never tell you what you mean to me. For you to see the truth in my words, in my position, will be a stretch. I know you view the world with jaded rosy glasses. But you like them. They still fit. They're comfortable. I get it. Perhaps that is the chasm that I couldn't see from the beginning. Because I forgot my glasses. I saw everything. And now everything is upside down, spinning. Has it always been this way? I panicked. I'm paranoid. I've been hurt, deeply, too many times. I was a doormat for so long I became one, to my core. And that's when I knew. Break it off now, there's no way it'll be reciprocated-it never is. I thought you would be the one to prove me wrong, but I fooled myself. Because you fooled me. The ******* hormones in my brain were having such a good time getting to know each other that they forgot where the hell they put the keys and where they were going and what year it is. How? Why? When?

My soul sings for you. It cries for you. But you will never know this. I tried to walk confidently on the frozen lake, but you were quick to remind me that our weight together will make us fall in. Apart, a small distance, we can be together. But only sometimes for a short while.

Do you know I love you? I am, truly, in love with you. But hey, I don't know how 'serious' you'll take me. I'm just a silly blonde girl. Like the blonde you dated for a month before me that felt the same way. We're all the same to you. Our love? It's something dreams are made of. Ethereal is the only word in this world that comes close.

All I know, is that I'm done. I'm done in the way that scares me inside. Because I'm not alone now. My shadow friend is back. I haven't seen him in two ******* years. Can't say I've missed him, but he's back here now. The ball isn't even in your court. I think we both lost the ball, or maybe, just maybe, the ball left us.

The shadow person is back.
With the shadow hat and cloak and blanket that makes you oh so comfortable.
Forever inviting, to a place you swore you wouldn't return.
I'm still here existing.
Blowing the dust off the happy mask to wear.
So the shadow person can have me.
Who know's when the sun will rise in my eyes again,
Maybe a week, or two.
I think the shadow person knows, but he keeps secrets for quite some time.

To this day I know not why I don't take my own advice.
It's as if I thrive on the turmoil and rainy day parade I create.
There is no cure for hopeless optimism in Love;
Only the realization that some things are meant to be eternal
In a different way. In a dreamland.

So instead of being the one to be heartbroken,
I have chosen to be the one who tears down another's world.
I shatter the dreams I long for. I am the one that gets the final say.
It's a different kind of high-to finally become the pedestal from which I knew I should have been on the entire time.

I can't say the view from where I stand in my mind is clear, or better.
I can't win in the game of Love. But in the game of War, I am cruel at heart. Cruel in a way that is honest, in fact, not cruel at all. I wonder some days if the passive voice inside my head is actually my sense of worth, escaping the quicksand that it's been under for far, far, too long.

My love, if you die and I don't--,
let's not give grief an even greater field.
No expanse is greater than where we live.

Dust in the wheat, sand in the deserts,
time, wandering water, the vague wind
swept us like sailing seeds.
We might not have found one another in time.

This meadow where we find ourselves,
O little infinity! we give it back.
But Love, this love has not ended:

just as it never had a birth, it has
no death: it is like a long river,
only changing lands, and changing lips.

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.