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They are the two most relatable and utterly contagious human afflictions: love and hatred. And passion is the the most ironic impetus behind both, which quite often causes these two emotions to be synonymous. It’s why we keep coming back to the ones that hurt us the most. Its criminals always return to the scene of the crime. Why the feeder rat runs over to sniff the snake.
I woke up outside and searched desperately in hopes that last night was a dream. But, scratches, bruises, bite marks…..These are all binding contracts that can not be refuted. I caught a glimpse of myself in an old dirty mirror and noticed my eyes resembled an old, worn photograph from the 1800s. The meloncholly it brought numbed me a little, just enough to go back to sleep for another hour or so. The animals sleep outside…..

She keeps me here because the thinks I’m good for her. As if i am the one that’s gonna save her, and that makes me the worst type of hero. The ones that lead you out to the fires under the guise of an innocent and loyal companion who doesn’t know better. I am the canine that destroys all her favorite things and she keeps letting sleep in her bed because I am warm at night. I am the wolf she mistakes for her shepard. And that alone must be enough because there’s nothing else. No comfort, No compassion. Just bent fences and torn dresses. Picked locks and talking our way out of handcuffs. Hours later, applying them myself.
Hours later talking myself into leaving.
Hours later waking up outside.
We are all the most terrible when we are alone. We are all the most unforgivable when the doors are locked. Ive seen it all and talked them into most of it. Because I’m terribly afraid to admit that love and hatred are the same thing. It’s why I choke her when I kiss her. Comfort is the warm room where the greatest obscenities occur. It’s the parasite in my chest and the dreams tearing me limb from limb at night. It’s why I refuse to take you home, because I still haven’t found one. It’s why i sleep outside with the other animals.

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I knew she was alive and breathing all along. Theres been so many nights when the city dove into complete silence, and I could remember hearing the sound of her chest heaving. So charmingly distinguished from the terrible moan of a million other things that were lost to this sluggish, repetitive town. A place that’s certainly inept towards any type of sensitivity of the human spirit. Most of the year I’m susceptible to a certain diminishment of my vitality. But I knew she was there…  

She is Serendipity and I’ve leared to tell her apart from all other enertias – gravity pales in her comparison to her draw. Even her very likliness can lift the skies and force an entire ocean through the keyhole of my bedroom door.

I awake to pleasant shivers as she traces my cheekbone with the tip of her finger each morning. The way the sun from the window across the room silhouettes her body is more irresistible than any piece of lace she could possibly be draped in.

If only I could translate in succinct verse all of the things she’s showed me. The sophistication of a quiet winter evening sitting alone under the quivering leaves of an old oak. I collected a million different shades of blue and green from her eyes and I would use these fascinating hues to paint my own grayed world for weeks at a time.   I feel the air pass through our twisted limbs with complex softness. Like a crazed feline – too curious to just let each us be and yet much too empathetic to destroy us.  Slowly, her gentle breath on my shoulder begins to distinguish me apart from all the pitiful bodies lining trite American homes and interstates.

When we walk down rainy avenues, I hold her hand like a child holds onto a small balloon. My reaction to feeling that she was much lighter than air and if I should ever loosen my grip, she might drift away into the clouds above and her eyes would color the darkened atmosphere with those intricate blues and greens. So I took small pieces of string and began to sew small pieces of my own life to her, to keep from dancing away into the air – So that my world could retain these wonderful new tones. Past memories and dusty old literature from my bookshelf were sewn to her along with a few love letters written from foxhole of a uselessly romantic young man. Pieces of me strung to her soft skin, to keep her from dismantling in the wind like a dandelion. So that, should she ever get carried away, she would take me along for the ride.

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Maybe the chemicals needed for these types of things no longer flow accurately… My mind makes a mockery of all natural and fairly simple things. Things that should ideally coexist beautifully – like love and lust.

Yet, these two have become entirely different to me now. They are two ends of the same snake eating its own tail. They will lead back into each other continually but only come together in some sort of violence. They refuse to operate along the same guidelines.

My lust causes romance to become obtrusive and deserving of ridicule. Nothing beautiful belongs in these moments. 
Only hues of black and blue and green underneath.
I do not make love, I make you do everything else. I make you suffer. You burst into flames, then I throw your ashes out over the ocean. 
And my palms pressed into your neck make you feel like you’re drowning.

Then we wake up in a hotel overlooking the east coast. Like we got lucky and somehow drifted back to shore. Your limbs are twisted into mine, and my arms and torso are wrapped delicately in your black hair – like seaweed decorates a shipwreck.
You listen to my heart push blood around inside my body. Back and forth. Waxing and waning like the tide. But now the current is so very low – so very far away from you – because I’m back in love and you are safe. Away from filth and depravity of moments ago. Like it was all swept away in the undertow.  Though, we both know that tonight, my heart will push the tide back in, and soon it will engulf you entirely, and you will once again begin to drown. Gasping for air. Clawing at my chest. Your empty vessel will again be lost in the fury of my seas. My waves crashing relentlessly against you. Doomed to break apart and sink to the bottom of the ocean.

…..then we wake up again, strewn about like broken planks torn from haunted shipwrecks. Waterlogged. Safely washed ashore together.

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