Cough

you know how
when you can feel a cough coming
you try to hold it in?
you try to show it
that you're stronger than it?
and then it ends up choking you
twisting up your throat
and it comes out of you
and you don't even know how it did it
but it did?

that's what
loving you was like

you came into my life
and i knew you were bad from the start
so i kept my distance
and when you came closer i put up my defenses
wall after
wall after
wall
and when you came even closer
i started running

but you caught up
and you didn't break down those walls of mine
but you climbed over them
(i still don't know how you did that)
and you overcame my defenses
and like a sickness, you crept into my heart
and my lungs
and my head
and you shook and you rattled all of the beliefs i held to be true until they were nothing but theories
and you left me unsure
and afraid
and vulnerable
you left me like a cough:
slowly (slowly enough that i had nearly no suspicions)
and quietly (but not so quiet that i could hear my own warnings)
you left me like a cough would
you disappeared
yet you lingered,
waiting for the next moment to strike