A Love Story

I'm afraid of being in love.
Some days it takes all the effort I have not to leave you.
Some days it takes all the effort I have to make eye contact with you and not shudder when you touch me.
Not because I don't love you, but because I am who I am.
Being in love has been wonderful, but it hasn't changed everything.

Some days my main thought is suicide.
If a driverless car were to go past I would take my chance with its bonnet and go.
Some days I think of all the ways I could kill myself and make it look like an accident so it wouldn't upset anyone.

Some days I am so apathetic towards leaving the house that I cry at the thought of the front door.
The duvet becomes a sullen friend who holds me tight but isn't really helping.
Some days I wish I wouldn't wake up and I cry when I do because I can't cope with my thoughts.

The truth about my life is that some days it bleeds,
And I sit motionless, unwilling to stem the flow,
Or shield you from the blow.

Every twinkling persona I've developed is leaden,
I sit, buried in my own frown - glued to the feeling,
Shying from healing,
Rhyming despite reeling.
I'll stop rhyming now - it isn't helping anyone.

Falling in love isn't magic, well, it is, but not all encompassing.
It's film magic - you can change the colour of a cat but the Weasleys are still poor.
Love gets between the bricks of your life and sures them up; but it can't afford new bricks for you.

Please don't think I am downplaying my love for you.
I love you to the point where some days I forget I have a boyfriend because you are so much a part of me that I've forgotten you are something so fickle as 'boyfriend'.
You are every hero in every film I weep at; you're Rhett, it's our ship going down, we fall in love again with every No. 1 ballad I hear.

But I don't have a script writer.
Sadly, Richard Curtis was unavailable to pen my gradual thawing in the aftermath of loving you.
I apologise that we won't have an Oscar winning screenplay, but I should get some marks for originality.

Girl meets boy. They fall in love. The world still caves in from time to time.

Imagine if your chest crumpled, not like paper or something delicate,
Imagine if your chest of bone and muscle and blood squeezed itself until it crumpled and then lay there.
You'd expect people to notice.
People would want to help.
Imagine trying to tell them not to help because if you wait, and think, and sleep and eat right, it will re inflate itself and you'll be fine.
People would still want to help.
Imagine the third and fourth time it happened, you'd want to stop showing it to people so you could wait by yourself until it re inflated.

I'm up there in the hundreds now. Hundreds of those crumpled days.
And I can't hide from you like I can with people. Because nowadays we love each other.
Believe me when I say it breaks my heart teaching you to wait for my chest to re inflate.
I am thinking on those days, behind my blank eyes and my vicious comments, I am watching you crumble and wonder if I can pull myself together.
I watch a timer above your head counting down to the day you can't cope with me any more. And I just have to hope I re inflate before you reach 00:00.
But I am far away, under a layer of rock, under an ocean, under so many thoughts, under tears I don't have the energy to spill or hold back. I'll come back as soon as I can. And I'll always come back to you.

If you'll have me.

I'm afraid of being in love.
I'm afraid of still being in love when you no longer are.
I'm afraid that one day I'll re inflate and you'll be gone.
I'm afraid you deserve better.
I'm afraid I can't be better.
I'm afraid you'll start to believe the crumpled days are the real ones.
I'm afraid one day I'll see a driverless car.

The love magic hasn't stopped the bad days.
Like it didn't save Dumbledore's life.
But it gives me an oil painting to talk to, once I've gone behind my eyes, so you've come with me.
So, even though I'm rude and I'm difficult and I'm comatose, I've snuck you in.
And I'm so grateful. You'll never know how grateful.