He says he's getting feelings,
and I'm oblivious to what he means
even as my skin prickles and itches,
like there are flies crawling over it
and leaving their grubby, microscopic footprints behind.

He gets nasty about it,
and then I get it. Funny, that:
I only ever understand things
once demonstrated with aggression,
violence.
Or maybe not so funny at all.

And it's funny, because I just
don't believe him, and yet I do
at the same time.
He's a player and a cheat, but
he has a heart as he tells his side of the stories,
and I kiss his frown away.

Funnier still: they all have words to say about
him―the player, the cheat, the *******, the guys that
leads their friends on-
they talk about him
as if he dangles bait from the end of a string
in front of starving mice
so he can snap them up in his jaws and
swallow them whole,
only to spit them out later,
mangled and broken.

Perhaps a little like him.

I think they forget he has feelings too.

Even funnier still that
I feel like I'll be the one that breaks his heart
because I'm all well and good for liking him,
but my heart belongs to another,
and my friends, they like me, think me better
than the way I advertise myself;

I know they're wrong, because I know myself.
Always without intention, though often
without remorse, too,
I break the people closest to me,
snap them like twigs,
chew them up like defenseless mice
between my gnashing teeth,
and spew them up later
with the bile-burn of self-loathing,
mangled and broken.

Perhaps a little like me.

I think I forget I have feelings too.