Aftermath

I know that look you have on your face when you see me in a dress, when I slap on some eyeliner. I know that look. The soft one, with your eyes twinkling, and your mouth twitching at the corners. I know that look because I've lived that look. That look has been my life. I've looked at so many men the way you look at me, with the heart in my eyes and a ready kiss on my lips. But I've never looked at you like that.

I know the hungry way your hands grip my waist, my thighs, my neck, my face, my breasts. I've felt that hunger, that yearning, the need to rip clothes off and kiss the bare skin underneath. That, at least, I have felt with you, on multiple occasions, wishing we were some place private and not jumping at the slightest sound.

I know the way your breath hitches as you deepen the kiss, the rise and fall of your chest that moves erratically with mine. I know the way your heart beats like it's running a marathon. I've felt that only with one before you.

I know the way you're teetering from the edge of falling in love, or maybe you've already fallen. Please don't fall, I won't catch you.

But, babe, I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING.

Spoiling me and pampering me, hoping that maybe I'd like it all enough to keep you close, to maybe jump off the edge like you are so ready to do. Making me feel at home, and safe, and like you'll be there forever and ever to hold my hand and take care of me. I know what you're doing, because I'm doing the same thing.

I know you think I'm sweet, and loving, and cute, and caring and soft.. and I am. I really am. But I am also the hurricane that will unforgivably rip off the hinges of your front door and decimate all you love. You hold me like I am the most fragile flower and kiss me with such softness sometimes, I wonder what I did to deserve these moments with you. But you have to remember, love, I am also the monsters in your head, and the darkness that makes you miss me at night. 

And you're sweet, and kind... and everything I'd have ever wanted if I wasn't this... strange and broken and grotesque.

You are only selfish when taking my kisses.

I am selfish because I allow you to be mine for this moment, this day, this week, this month, until I tire of you or find someone else.

It would be so easy to love you, you know? So easy. But I can't give you that gun. I can't give you that power to hurt me. I refuse.