(he)
my mind is my prison,
starving me, hitting me, knowing my every weakness and using it against me,
continuously,
firmly,
eternally.
and as i sleep, my guard down, it attacks me each night. i can feel its teeth biting my skin, leaving marks, its claws on my arm, pulling me to a moat, pushing me in.
and so i dream. i dream a lot, actually.
i dream and it's mostly not dreams i would want to remember but i mostly do because i'm mostly self-destructive and trying to push myself to the limit.
i dream and it's not up to me, yet i feel guilty because i know in some distorted way it actually is.
my mind is my torturer,
cutting me open and eating my bones, and letting me dream what i want to forget.
and so i dreamt that night.
i dreamt and my head exploded as it always does, and i woke up, 3am, and i cried.
i cried and then i didn't stop, i cried a river.
i cried angry, i cried surrendered.
i cried on the floor, under the pillow, i cried punching the wall.
i turned around and there were you and i saw it in your face. fear.
you slowly took steps towards me and reached for my hand and looked at it.
my knuckles were red and my eyes were swollen and my lips were praying you would kiss rather than talk. you did neither.
you looked back up to me, still afraid.
i tried to smile and hide how much that look of yours destroyed me, that look you gave me as if i were about to hit you too.
i tried to smile and you tried to smile back but neither of our smiles were true, and that is what hurt most.
"when is a monster not a monster?
oh, when you love it."
i remembered these lines from a book and thought to myself that you must have not loved me then, because i still felt pretty monster-y.
i have always wanted to be loved,
always searched for that feeling.
at times i thought i was loved but found out i was not. that night was different. that night,
i didn't only want to be loved.
i wanted to be loved by you.
no other love could have ever been on the same level, and i didn't need to experience it to know.
you loved me in my head.
that was probably the worst torture of all.
you looked at me and i looked at you, and we smiled but it wasn't real.
and then you stood for a while, so i stood back, in silence.
you got even closer and i could hear music coming from your brain, it was classical.
it was lovely.
you got even closer and embraced me and i started breathing again. your arms around my neck, i hid my face on yours and we fell in each other for a while. i smelled the roses in your hair and wondered if it had been made from petals, and your mouth left a trace of cheap wine on my nape and i didn't mind at all.
> let's go back to bed, okay?
> ...okay. don't you have questions?
> isn't that the whole point? we're strangers after all.
i crawled in your bed and you held me, caressing my face, brushing my hair with your fingers, then closing my eyes.
> the intimacy of wiping tears off your face is killing me.
> isn't that the whole point? we're lovers after all.
> oh, are we now?
you grinned and i thought that maybe you did love me.
i felt a little less monster-y.
and then i let myself sleep,
and then i dreamt good dreams, that tasted like cheap wine, sounded like classical music, looked like petals.
my mind kept carving me all night long but you were there to kiss each cut better,
and i thought to myself that perhaps you don't love me, and perhaps i don't love you,
and perhaps it's because
there isn't a word for you and i.
