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A comet.

That's how he referred to us. Burning fast, bright, and hot.

A trainwreck.

That was my interpretation of whatever the hell we were.

Both something you can't take your eyes off of. His was always more poetic, though.

I fell in love with him before he fell for me, and the first one to fall out of it. I only stayed for the comfort of it all. He was someone I knew. I was an anxious mess, relying too heavily on Xanax to get me through the day.

This he knew. He used it to his advantage, too. That manipulative fucker.

Of course, in the beginning I had no idea he was doing anything wrong. He spoke so sweetly to me. He wrote poems about me, and read them at coffee shops while I sat in the back, sipping a too big latte he would buy for me.

He would talk about worshiping my alabaster thighs, the way my hair on a pillow reminded him of the waves slowly rolling to shore, how the first time I said I love you is trapped in the backseat of his car, and when it rains, it's all he hears.

It was so beautiful, the way he spoke about me.

Reality was so different, though. He never touched my thighs, unless he had three or four drinks in him, or stayed long enough to see my hair fall freely on a pillow, it was always pulled up into a bun when we fucked.

He built me up in poems just to get me to stay. It worked, too, which is the saddest thing. I was always a sucker for sweet talkers. Got me into a lot of trouble.

He was the last one, though.

I would sit in the coffee shops and watch as the girls he spoke in front of stare at him with a dreamy awe in their eyes. Like he was some god they were being graced by. I would always smile to myself. That was my god up on that stage. I was his goddess. He even wrote a poem called Goddess after I told him about it.

I felt good.

I never saw the bad. I ignored the remarks. I disregarded the incredible roughness when he fucked me. I always chalked it up to his kinks. Always choking me so hard I had to scratch his back so deep he began to bleed. That was just a kink.

I wore chokers and chunky necklaces to try to hide the fingerprints buried in my neck.

One night he smacked me across the face.

I had a hand print across my cheek for two weeks. I mastered contouring and highlighting.

He took me to a club on a Saturday night. His card got declined the first attempt to buy drinks. Low book sales. I wasn't being a good muse.

He choked me again. This time, so hard I passed out.

I woke up in the living room on the couch.

Three hours later.

He wasn't anywhere to be found. The note on the coffee table in front of me said he was at a reading.

He came home that night with a bouquet of a dozen roses. They were so beautiful I almost forgot about the permanent bruise on my neck.

Almost.

He would try to choke me more and more in bed. I would always dig my nails into his arm to make him stop.

He slapped me across the face again. I bit back. Literally. Biting his shoulder so hard you could've taken a mold of the teeth prints. He yelled at me, pulling out and putting on his pants.

I muttered a half-hearted sorry.

He slammed the door and didn't come back for three days.

I was starting to see just how bad he was. He never hit me outside of bed, but it seemed like that wasn't just kinks anymore. That was abuse under the guise of kink. It wasn't something I was going to tolerate anymore.

I still loved him, though.

He invited me to another poetry reading. I sat in the back, as usual.

He talked about how much he loved me, comparing the way I smile to piano keys and how every time I laughed, the piano began to play, or something pretentious like that.

I slowly began to see how his writing was just a farce; a mockery of what we were.

He wrote about the night I passed out. He called it beautiful. He spun a story about how he held me until I woke up. About how my eyes reminded him of the fucking galaxy.

I started to hate him.

He was a fake.

With every poem he wrote about me, with every word, it broke down the walls I built around myself. His demons began to come out and slither between every word. I knew the truth.

It came to a point one night where I couldn't handle it anymore.

I told him I was going to read.

He lit up, thinking I was going to paint him as some king.

I smiled, of course, and got up to read.

"Don't know which is heavier
My eyes or my heart
Lids dragging down
Fighting sleep
Crying tears
The circles under my eyes act as umbrellas
Only upside down and stained with salt
Bitter
Just like the taste in my mouth when I think of you
Acid rising from my stomach
Up my throat
Settling
Burning in my mouth
The way your tongue felt the first night we kissed
Dark rooms, bright smiles
How come the past is the only bright thing I have?
And it's not even that bright
Tainted and darkened with greedy lovers
Taking so much more of me than I ever asked
You are one
I only asked you take my innocence
Instead you took my heart
My wasted
Pathetic
Heart
You have it
And this you know
But it is too heavy for you to hold
Tie it to a leash and string it along behind you
I just wish you would've picked it up
And carried it upon your sleeve
Like a boyscout badge of honor
One you fought like hell to earn
The way you write about
Only you didn't
I've given
And you've taken."

The crowd clapped. You didn't. You stared at me with disgust on your face.

I bowed, walked off the stage, and right out the door.

I was done.

You're nothing but a waste of space in my head.