For the Shadow Man

i try to write and i cant - all that comes out are words that don't make sense, sentences that can't form a coherent meaning and i don't know why, maybe it's because of you. maybe it's because every time i press my fingertips on the first letter of your name, my heart stutters and my throat swells and i can barely breath. maybe it's because all i can think about writing is your name and what you smelled like and what it felt like to look into your eyes. and maybe you didn't feel the same, and it doesn't matter, but it still hurts. it hurts like a paper-cut or being wide awake at two in the morning. it hurts like running into the pointy edge of a kitchen table or stubbing your toe in the doorway. it hurts like a million people loving you but hating you all at once - what does that even mean? see, i cant write anything about you, none of it makes sense. it doesn't make sense like babies who cry and never stop even after you do everything you can. it doesn't make sense like loving someone like you; loving someone who didn't bring out the best but the worst, someone who stepped on all the flowers in your ribcage, someone who drank your blood because they thought it would make them younger. you ruined my words, the only thing i was good at, will ever be good at, but i don't hate you. i don't hate you and i should, and i do hate you for making me not hate you, but really, i don't. i can only write in run-on sentences because that's how you make me feel. i cant capitalize because you were the only thing that deserved to be, i cant tell you i love you between the lines because there is no more room, you have ruined it. you have ruined these pages and my words; you have ruined my gardens and heart and lungs, but i still love you.