Chagrin

She pulls and bites and grabs and scratches.  She smothers with kisses, as she forces my face to touch hers.  She screams "LOVE ME!" without saying a word.  She thinks she loves me, or wants to love me.  She hasn't seen the darkness though.  She doesn't know.

The darkness came long ago.  It crept in slowly, unnoticeably.  The darkness is what forms when the stuff on the inside, the life that filled me, is taken out by so many hands.  The darkness is all that's left when you become hollow.  The darkness asks only one thing of you.  Fill it.  It is a void.  I have seen it swallow people whole, and now I refuse to feed it anymore.

I know what it wants.  I know how it hurts.  I know that she will not survive.  So I push her away.  I push her away because I care.  I care but I do not love.  I cannot love.  I have been ruined to a point where my love requires too much.  I ask for too much.  I am starved and greedy, resigning myself to only let in the few who may be strong enough to bond, to cope, to meet my selfish demands.

I wish I could love anyone.  I wish I was a better person in that respect.  I have not loved so many who deserved it, and I have hurt so many who have not.  I thought I was doing the right things, making the right choices, but as I look back I am only confused.  Maybe tomorrow I'll find hope, maybe tomorrow hope will smile at me.

She pulls and bites and grabs and scratches.  She smothers with kisses, as she forces my face to touch hers.  She screams "LOVE ME!" without saying a word.

I push her away.