When I think of love, I see The Ruins. It is you at your worst state and yet I still held your hand. It is seeing eyes turn into darkness that I thought I could hold and breathe into. It is feeding your coldness and bitterness with the warmth of a smile and a touch. To love you was to see you in ruins. It is laughing at the most unhappy moments. It is in smiling to get through the day. To not see your face the way I thought I had memorized in my brain. To not see you in dreams and only see you in nightmares. To look at synthetic leather and be reminded of your violence. To smell the scent of car perfume and be reminded of suffocating. To finally wake up and see your eyes the way they always saw mine and the way you held them without knowing who I am. To feel the thin hair on your head as I graze through it with my fingertips. To have you lie beneath my shoulder or against my chest, knowing what it cost me and what it meant to you. To see your most vulnerable spots and know where it hid without looking. To feel the weight of your arm as it lazily naps on me while I am struggling to find the warmth of a blanket. To discard your words and believe my own. To deny myself the right to my own body as you pushed me and have to explain that it hurt. To believe in your heart despite seeing it all. To see the highlights of your face against the sun and watch it dissolve when its dark and the room is empty. To never see you again. And still, to know that I have loved. To love is to see yourself in ruins and still accept it as if it had ever been anything close to love.