I make hellos seem more like drawn out goodbyes and I wave to everyone who is standing still. I walk faster than my feet can carry me and I bathe in acetone to shed off the layers of therapy painted on over the years. I scream whispers of a broken home and wear broken watches to remember what time it was last time I felt alive. I keep sunglasses in my pocket but I can never put them on because the world is too dark for me. I hide feelings inside of mason jars and write "moonshine" on them so people think I know how to have a good time. The mirrors around my house are all cracked from the inside out. The books on the shelves are all tearing themselves away from the spine. Nothing wants to be what it is intended to and no one wants to be who they are when I am around. I stock tears on a shelf that was built by the hands that held me as a baby and by the same hands that have not held each other's in so long. I take long walks in circles and run trails that teeter on the edges of cliffs. I write soliloquies for all the things I should have said and I bite my lip when you come around. My heart skips two beats when you look at me and I wonder why it isn't just the one this time. What makes you different than all the rest of the world, what makes you bring a smile to a man who knows nothing short of despair? I wonder what you will do to me when you leave and I wonder what I will do to myself to try to keep you around. I wonder who else in the world could make my heart sing like this. I remember every other eventual end to a bond that I once called unbreakable. I know the pain of empty bottles and half smoked cigarettes; of broken mirrors and letters burning in the sink. I know the crunch of my knuckles on concrete and my unwillingness to try trusting someone again. I will only ask you to stay if you know what my pain is so that you would never leave me with it again.