I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. I fucking hate you.
I thought I'd finally rid myself of you -
Of that look on your face, like a kicked puppy, when I refused to play along.
The casual way you'd put your arm around my shoulder that meant nothing to you, and everything to me.

The way you smelled that morning, the one clear thing I know I will always remember - even as I'm clenching my teeth and shaking my head to forget - how it was all salt and sweat and sadness seeping from your pores.

I hugged you and I knew immediately how many hugs you had endured that day.
And I knew that mine was so much more than compulsory, so much more than what I thought you needed.
Knew that you were entirely oblivious to the look in my eyes, just how far gone I was at that moment.

So many things that I always knew and hid beneath layers and layers of flirtation and innocently sexual jokes and useless longing.

You served as some sort of buffer for me, I was erased under your wandering hands and the way you tossed your head, like a horse, to get your hair out of your eyes.

And all that time, all I wanted to do was grab your face by that fair skin below your ears, force you to look at me, force my lips on yours until I could drown out the screaming, wrenching knowledge that I would never be good enough, ever, not for you, not for you even in your pale, exposed state, standing there as defenseless as a newborn, pink and shaking and damaged in all of that inappropriate light.

The sun should have never come out again after that day.