Romance 12

Sometimes I still think of her. Sometimes. And I don't know whether it's a passing weakness, a fleeting desire, or something deeper, pernicious even. Like a moth to a blazing torch, my mind flies, what if-ing my way to incineration.

She was hot and cold. Not warm, like you, but fiery to the point of scalding, freezing til stasis or shatter. The callous intensity, the fuck me til I drop, and she's smoking a cigarette under the sky alone, my vulnerability wasted on soiled sheets. She burns me, cuts me, and I taste the blood, the pain, and hate myself for being what she does to me.

I love it. The power, the strength, the subtle disdain in every condescending glance. Use me, abuse me, lose me when she wants. I'll always cry, always want back on her burning bosom. Shelter be damned, I want storms and sunshine.

You give your love like charity. Hers, I have to earn. I have to struggle for it, have to fight to keep my spot each night. It's vicious. Everyone's a competitor, everyone has a chance. Egalitarian affection at its worst.

It hurts. To always be afraid. To always wonder if I've lost without knowing, to second guess whether to cling or cast off. To always be on, always worry, always wonder if now is the moment I stumble, moment I fall from her grace and end up another jealous fuck, wanting back in the garden with “No Vacancy” flashing in sinful neon. A hangover I can't shake. Only myself to blame, only myself to hope for another chance. No rest for the unrequited.

Sometimes I think of her. You don't hurt me like you should. You don't hate me like I want to hate myself, modeling my vices, the pornography of perdition. You give me what I lust to earn. So I sometimes think of her.

And then I roll over. And you're smiling in your sleep. And I know you'll be there tomorrow, giving yourself to me as if I deserve it. It's so easy, it almost hurts. Almost. And I guess that's the problem.

Too good to me, too good for me. Only an idiot would love anything else.