Please stop making me love you. And while you're at it, please stop making me like you. It's hard enough to count sheep without seeing you like a wolf, disguised as innocent but ready to skin me alive when I get close. Now and then, I scratch at the paint on the wall by my bed and observe how easily it flakes off, and I wondered if I had spent anymore time scratching your back would your skin finally start to peel so that I could see the darkness beneath it. Now and again I savor the feeling of my stomach bottoming out when I lose my footing while stumbling down the stairs in a halfway alternate reality that starts and ends with strands of your hair in my mouth and in between my fingers. Give me the strength to love you and I will give you my unloved dog-like devotion. I've played my cards and I've got no more hands, but I don't mind you shuffling your deck and using my back as a poker table. Come over and talk to me sometime, and you can break my neck and talk about the weather and **** time by killing me. The stars are beginning to lose their shape and soon the sun will push them all aside and I cannot wait. I never was afraid of the dark, but I'm terrified of you.