I feel happy when you're isolated
(Does it make me a monster to crave your loneliness?)  
When the room is empty, it’s finally full,  
you and I, boundless, together, whole.  
The world, a lock; my love, the key.  
Why do you call it a cage?  

I'll love you, and hold you,  
until your breath feels like mine,  
until your ribs collapse beneath my grip.  
(Is this what love tastes like bitter iron, metallic guilt?)  
You say you’re suffocating; I only want to keep you close.  
Why do you want to escape?  

"You're too much," you whisper, trembling,  
obsessive? Possessive? Clingy?  
Check. Check. Check.  
Each box is a badge, carved in blood.  
You say I scare you (am I fear incarnate?)  
But if I frighten you, why don't you run?  
Oh, that's right I’ve clipped your wings.  

I need you. I need you.  
Each heartbeat of yours should echo for me.  
Doesn’t love mean taking what’s yours?  
Why let others touch what’s mine?  
(But God, am I a thief, or just hungry?)  
I'm hungry for the way your presence consumes me whole.  

Your heart delicate, beating, bruised
I imagine it raw between my teeth.  
If I eat it, it stays.  
If it stays, you stay.  
If you stay, I live.  
(Is this love? Or madness unbound?)  

You tell me to stop. Stop clinging, stop claiming,  
stop turning your name into my prayer.  
But you don’t understand I’m a fire,  
and you’re the only air I’ll ever breathe.  
Take away the oxygen, and I’ll burn out,  
but take you away, and I’ll burn forever.  

(Call it toxic. Call it vile.  
I call it survival.  
But maybe survival is no excuse  
to tear the ones you love apart.)  

Still, I hold you tighter.  
Still, I stay.  
Even if I have to devour you piece by piece,  
until you are too small to leave.

But if I break you down, piece by piece,  
you’ll never belong to anyone but me.  
I’ll take your words, your thoughts, your voice,  
strip you bare of the things I cannot control.  
You’ll be mine perfectly, wholly, finally mine.  
What else is love but possession refined?  

(Am I cruel? Am I insane?  
Or am I just a lover who loves too much?)  
I would rip out the stars from the heavens  
if you dared to dream beyond me.  
I would burn the world into ash  
just to keep it from stealing your gaze.  

Why can’t you understand?  
Everything I do, I do because I need you,  
because I am you, and without you, I’m nothing.  
If loving you means destroying you,  
then let me be your ruin.  
You’ll never leave me if there’s nowhere left to go.

(Am I a lover, or a thief?  
Am I holding you, or burying you alive?)  
It doesn’t matter.  
You’re still here, aren’t you?  
Still trembling under my touch,  
still breathing, though barely,  
and that’s enough for me.  

I dream of sewing our shadows together,  
of binding your footsteps to mine,  
so you can’t stray,  
so you can’t flee to someone better,  
someone lighter,  
someone who doesn’t drown you in their need.  
(Is it drowning if I pull you down gently?)  

You say you’re breaking
but isn’t love meant to break us?  
To snap ribs like dry twigs,  
to grind bones into dust,  
to hollow us out and fill us with one another?  
I’ll give you every jagged piece of me  
why can’t you do the same?  

You cry when I hold you too tight.  
You beg me to let go.  
But how can I?  
How can I free the only thing  
that keeps me tethered to this world?  
If I let you go,  
who will carry the weight of my love?  
(And is it even love anymore,  
or something darker wearing its skin?)  

You’ll say I ruined you,  
that I tore you apart in my frenzy to keep you whole.  
But when I close my eyes,  
I see us entwined,  
you are dissolving into me,  
until there’s no you left, only us
a perfect, twisted union.  

(And if that’s love,  
then let it destroy us both.)
  
Your silence is the sweetest sound,  
a lullaby strung on trembling chords.  
When you speak, I fear who will you call?  
Who will steal your voice, your words,  
your gaze that’s mine to drown in?  
I’d rather gag the world than let it hear you. 
 
Stay quiet. Stay still.  
(But why am I trembling? Why does this ache?)  
Your breaths are my confession,  
your pulse my sermon.  
If I must carve my prayers into your skin,  
so be it. Skin can’t leave, skin can’t stray.  

I’ve torn apart the stars to make you look my way,  
shattered the moon just to dim its pull,  
ripped every thread connecting you to them 
those “others” who call you love.  
(But why do I call their names in my nightmares?)  
They’ll never love you like I do.  

Each moment you're not with me,  
I feel you slipping.  
I dig my nails into the seams of your soul,  
pulling, pulling.  
Can you hear me breaking?  
No, you’re too busy fighting to breathe.  

What do they offer you?  
Laughter? Freedom?  
Cheap imitations of eternity?  
I’d sell my body to be your chains,  
bind myself in knots so tight,  
you couldn’t leave even if you tried.  

Let them say I’m twisted.  
Let them call me unhinged.  
I’ll wear their scorn like armor,  
a martyr to my devotion.  
I love you so much,  
it should hurt.  

(I see your fear. I know it.  
It stares at me from the mirror,  
but I cannot stop, will not stop.)  

What are you afraid of?  
I’m not a villain I’m just yours.  
Yours, like shadows, cling to light,  
like the sea clings to a drowning man.  
Doesn’t it make sense? Doesn’t it feel right?  

(And yet, why do I feel the rot inside me,  
gnawing, gnashing, growing louder?)  
But still, I press closer.  
Still, I devour.  
You’ll never escape not because you can’t,  
but because I’ll make you believe you shouldn’t.

I am a graveyard of the love you gave.
Every kiss another tombstone,
every touch a funeral dirge.
If I bury you deep enough in my soul,
will you stop running?

(I whisper apologies into your empty pillow,
but the truth is I’d destroy you again
just to keep you from leaving.)

I’ll carve your name into my bones,  
so I feel you every time I move.  
If I can’t have your love,  
I’ll take your shadow, your breath,  
the pieces of you you’ve forgotten to guard.  
(Is this love? Or am I building an altar to my destruction?)  

You look at me like I’m a stranger
no, like I’m the monster you once believed lived under your bed.  
But didn’t I crawl out just to hold you?  
Didn’t I fight every demon to make you mine?  
How can you look at me now,  
and see anything but devotion?  

I dream of locking you away,  
a glass case for your smile,  
so no one can touch what’s only mine.  
(Do I love you? Or do I crave the idea of owning you?)  
You say love is freedom,  
but freedom leaves too much space to lose you.  

You cry when I grip your hand too tightly,  
your pulse quickens beneath my fingertips.  
And yet, I smile,  
because your fear means I still have you.  
(Is that joy? Or a sickness festering deep in my chest?)  
If you’d only let me swallow your pain,  
you’d see it’s only ever been you.  

I see the way your eyes drift to others,  
the way you glow when someone else speaks your name.  
Each glance feels like a blade,  
and I bleed silently, invisibly,  
until all that’s left is a void,  
a void that can only be filled by you.  

So I sink my teeth deeper,  
begging you to stay,  
begging you to love me enough to forget the world.  
(Is this love? Or have I become a black hole,  
swallowing everything in my path?)  

Even as you tremble, I kiss your fear,  
because fear means I still matter.  
Your heart beats faster when I touch you
not from love, but terror
and still, I call it mine.  
Because if I can’t make
you love me,  
at least I can make you stay.  

Stay in this prison of my making,  
this shrine is built on obsession.  
Even as you cry, even as you beg,  
I’ll hold you tighter, whispering,  
"It’s all for love.
It’s all for us."

.    .    .