My Demon-Lover

When I first laid eyes on you in person,
Your smile shining brighter than it ever could have in a photo,
Your cigarette's smoke strong and choking,
Your vocal chords orchestrating a melodic greeting for me and me alone--
I knew that we were meant to meet.

What I didn't and still don't know
Is why.
Our friendship's origin story
So obscure and random,
So out of the blue,
It can only be fate that brought us together.

Yet now, as I am melting in my apartment,
Succumbing to the heat,
Replaying moments with you in my head,
I realize just how apparent
The imbalance is.

I often set myself up for failure, and if not failure, then for disappointment.

You told me your feelings for me will always come second to our friendship.
And what's awful is that
I regularly picture us ruining our friendship,
Transforming it into something more.
More than it already is.

What we have now is satisfactory,
But I am not easily satisfied.
And neither are you,
Blood-thirsty and power-hungry.
Hair wild, untamed, much like yourself.
Always trying to win, no matter if you really want the prize or not.
Adorned with bones and remains,
Bejeweled by dust and debris,
Lugging around your heavy heart like a cadaver in a body bag
But paying no mind to the thudding.

I was visiting you for 4 days.
It took me 3 to break down to you.
And not about anything apparent, or recent, or what I should have been bringing up with you.

Instead I broke down to you
About my mother.
About my siblings.
About how I've hurt them, and how they've in turn hurt me.

I cry, and you hold me.
You don't always understand why I get worked up when I do,
But I see you do your best to understand anyways.
It is pitch black outside as I weep,
The heat clinging to my skin
As I cling to you.

Your firm arms and gentle hands comfort me as I try to let it all out,
Let you know really what is bothering me in this moment,
Let you know why I am the way I am,
Cry like a baby, newly born, to you.

But I do not often get to be a shoulder for you.
Man of stone, unbreakable, undefeatable,
An Achilles in your own right, your weak spot being your chest and all that it holds.

I, now given the space, may be able to see you.
And by "see you", I mean perceive you in a manner that I haven't been able to just yet.
Perceive every smile that did not meet your eyes, pair it to every one that did.
Take note of your delicate wrists, attaching hands put through hell to a not-so-delicate body.
Your body which I admire so.
Your mind which is a tropical storm, wreaking havoc on its own land.
Your spirit unbreakable yet haunting.
Your eyes and how they burrow into and beyond mine.

How there is no spell I could have cast to protect myself from you, my demon-lover.
My soul-sucker.
My favorite.

The longer I speculate on the hows and whys of why we are friends,
Why our friendship is the way it is,
The more I realize how many people are lessons to be learned.
And how I hope you are more than just someone brought to me to teach me something, only to fade away into nothingness once the lesson is over.
How I fixated onto you for months, so really how could you ever fade into nothingness?
But in that same vein, I wonder how easily you could forget me.

I am not something special to you, it feels at times.
Often it feels like I am just here for your pleasure,
Something to indulge in,
Before moving onto the next.
And the next.
And the next...

You told me not to talk to you like you were one of my hoes.
Which at the time I found hilarious.
But now I wish to say the same to you, in a way.

Something like...

I am more than just something to ravish,
Something to conquer.
I have always seen you as more than just a conquest, a striking face, something to be won.
So show me the same courtesy,
O, demon-lover,
Silken-song,
Masc siren of the swamp.
Show me the same or we will get nowhere.