Monster.

He thinks I can't see him.

Every night when he walks away from me, his boots scraping against the stinking concrete covered with piss and cigarette butts, he thinks I can't see him. His shoulders hunched as if he feels smaller than he really is, such a frightened man, whenever he walks away he looks as if he is about to commit murder.

His guilt is almost tangible in the air around him when he's with me.

He thinks I can't see him. Every night when I fall asleep next to him, he stirs and his muscles move against my body and I see him, feel him, know him better than anyone else. His guilt is as liquid and as rigid as his vice and he thinks I can't see it, yet I'm drowning in it. Its cold tentacles reach out when I make love to him, when I kiss him, when I stroke his hair as he sleeps, and they grab me by the neck, their strength leaving deep blue imprints on my throat.

I wake up in a cold sweat once again, completely transfixed by the idea of his nightmares, his tremors caused by an immense guilt whose reason I will probably never uncover. His breathing is hitched and ragged as it reaches my ears in gasps and moans. My eyes, bloodshot with the capillaries still snapping from the strain of looking at this pathetic display, rest on his body, crumpled in the fetal position, small teeth biting a pallid lower lip. Thick black locks, drenched and matted, stuck to white skin streaked with salty water traces, white knuckles pulling at the sheets, all this I watch while it is completely unbeknownst to him for he wakes up completely unaware of the torment he overslept and I endured for him – the mere image of his body convulsing in pain hurt me more than a thousand heroin infested needles could.

His words are fake.

He is a fucking hypocrite.

Suicide, self-harm, eating-disorders, addictions, they are wrong for everyone but him.

He thinks I can't see him when the needle digs into his skin or when the gushing red of his blood mixes in with the acrid white on the flecked mirror when he's sniffing up all his cracked-porcelain I-won’t-do-it-eve-agains. He thinks I can't see the glass of his stare behind those dark sunglasses which always carry at least two sets of his fingerprints.

Even now, as he walks up to me slowly, timidly, like a child waiting to be scolded by his teacher, he tugs at his sleeves, hiding the ugly needle-marks where he pricked and probed his cellophane skin to see how much it can handle before it devours itself and turns his whole body inside out like a grotesque Halloween ornament. The black and blue and purple and yellow and green bruises around his neck from his latest suicide attempt peer out from behind the black turtleneck he never wears and stab at my eyes viciously. I clench my hands to keep them from lashing out at this brain-dead skeleton and spilling his bones all over the hardwood floor of our bedroom.

Fucking self-absorbed, self-destructive prick.

His parched lips part and utter my name and he thinks I can’t see the haze around him because he doesn’t slur when he’s high anymore. Practice makes perfect after all.

In his usual fashion, he’s making us late again. I don’t even know why I haven’t moved out of this crappy apartment of ours and bought myself a car. I know for a fact that my parents would be thrilled to get me one if that meant I was done with the entire sodomy deal as they self-righteously call it. I don’t know why I simply don’t let him slip and give up completely.

He isn’t even pretty anymore. As shallow as it sounds, I fell for his looks. Only months after all the mindless, bone-breaking fucking did I even consider the fact that I might love him. He was perfect with his alabaster skin and golden eyes and boyish grin and tiny teeth and a libido that went against reason. Pretty with his mouth always sucking on a cigarette and his forearms always dirty with paint and his clothes soiled from the last night’s wild parties. He was lovable with his gentle fingers and soothing voice. Lovable with his tenderness and corrupted innocence.

He is hideous now with his red flecked skin and dull eyes and mindfucked smile that never shows his tiny teeth anymore. Hideous with his nose always sprinkled with white and his forearms bruised from banging against the walls and with his clothes smelling like stale liquor and other men. Detestable with his calloused touch and hoarse voice. Detestable with his violent implosions and with his constant deathwish.

Selfish asshole.

Every day, he is haunted by them, I think. His monsters dance like shadows cast against the crumbling walls of his consciousness, reach out towards me and distort his ruined face as if to frighten me. Something so innocent and pretty, something so lovable and yet completely infested with something so ugly and cursed. Monster.

He leans in to kiss me, his lips pulled down at the corners. His bone-white, cold fingers touch the exposed skin of my neck and I suppress a shiver as they wrap around it tenderly, as they always do and the darkness is already creeping up from the corners of my eyes to envelope whole, swallow me and leave me for dead. As it always does.

The cold of his body infects mine and the remaining embers of my rage hiss and die, rendering me helpless.