People

I keep my eyes closed to try to hide the multitude of emotions I do not feel because opening them would reveal all.

I avoid glances and smile at the ground while I lie recklessly

repeating the same words that once before had so much meaning.

I twist and turn my words, tailor them to your every reaction to make you hate me; to soften the blow.

I am not what I am. Because all I can ever be is nothing more than what I see myself as.

Unlovable and unloving.

Incapable of

loving

You.

That’s why I want to tell you not to fall in love. Not to fall for anyone at all that is as remotely shape-shifting as me.

Someone who is Shifting, strutting, sleazing away from you like grains of wet sand reversing to their previous state.

What makes it worse—

even worse

is that you were

reassuring, relieving and relying on me like everyone relies on the Sun to rise again after a tough day.

That’s why I want to tell you.

Do not fall in love with people like me.

People who will take you to rooftop parks, road trips, and art galleries and kiss you in every beautiful place, so that, by the end of it all

you can never go back to them without

tasting them like blood in your mouth.

People like me that use you up and set you on fire

and forget

to clean up the ashes that

remain.