I expected pain. More memorable than a dull discomfort in the chest. I knew that I would have to purge you, and I expected some fever dreams. I had one about my ashes being carried to you through the air.
Eyes open, aware of the demise I constructed. There was a toughness, a crispness around the edges of my love.

But I didn't know that you could lacerate lifespans into a fraction. My suffering was emancipated and given the greater field to run through. I didn't know that my lust would drive me to lunacy. I didn't know that you would become a vice. I was promised the comfort of satiation, I didn't know that I would become primal for it. I didn't know that I would search for you in the bottom of every bottle, every swirl of wine that I smell.

I didn't know that the tick of midnight would hit differently. The spaces that you didn't occupy torment me more than the ones that held your presence. I expected you to reshape my inner aspects, and give me the most excruciating *******. I didn't know that you would close your fingers around my waist and inject poison into the hot pink. Not once did I imagine any children of yours that I would volunteer to exorcise over and over.

A mental, chemical stripping of the facade, I anticipated. But there was still physiological agony when you released my airway. When my body would catch the breaths that I tried to reject. I didn't know that you would hold me up to the Sun to show me that it's not God after all. I expected pain. But not a pain that would determine my price.