love shouldn't be

You walk into the room 

and my heart stops beating. 

Your presence steals the air 

from my lungs and stomps on it,

I take the space I fill and dump 

myself out so you can have it-

I erase myself entirely so your

silence can drown mine out. 

I haven’t met you and yet you 

look just like my home’s front door-

Inviting, recognizable, something 

I can put my trust in when

I feel lost and out of place. 

 

Do not be mistaken, this 

is not another sweet love poem

 

This is where I draw the line. 

This is a eulogy for a 

relationship I will not let begin. 

This is an obituary for the 

words I will not say to you. 

 

Why does the concept 

of the feelings I have for you

Leave such a bitter 

aftertaste in my mouth,

Leave remnants of a smoker’s 

hard work on my tongue?

 

Because I happen to have 

an addictive personality. 

If you read my genetic code, 

I would be a syllable off 

from dependent, a

letter off from user, a

breath away from maniac. 

 

My brain is wired to have difficulty 

finding something to satisfy it,

and when it finally does, it will 

latch onto it and milk it dry. 

If I like something, I just like it. 

If I love something, I obsess.

 

I obsess and I obsess and 

I obsess myself into oblivion. 

I will love you into insanity 

and drive myself over the edge. 

Your existence will give me 

a high and like everything that 

goes up, I must come down. 

Not gently, not calmly,

not gliding into a soft landing. 

Not with you. 

 

Because just like how I get 

addicted easily, just like how my 

blood makes me pick things up,

My brain makes me throw 

them all back down. 

You will make me so happy, 

so content, so satisfied, 

But my body longs to be 

hungry when it is full.

It's natural state is starving 

and you are the best meal 

I have ever had. 

 

I will start to equate 

you with endorphins 

And my brain will decide

it does not like the equation. 

 

My neurochemicals do not 

like being reminded that they 

have failed at their job. 

How selfish of me to try and 

fix the issue they have created. 

They rip off the scabs on my 

heart, they expose old wounds-

They are the platelets that do 

not come when they are called,

Yet despise every make-shift 

band-aid I manage to put on. 

 

I'll obsess myself into a cycle 

that makes me sick to my stomach. 

The love I have for you will 

morph eventually into anxiety,

And I take pills two times a day 

to remedy myself of that. 

I do not want to have to 

take pills to remedy you. 

You deserve someone who will

not turn you into a mental illness. 

You deserve someone who will 

love you for you, and not 

what you do to their body. 

You deserve someone who will 

hate you for you, and not 

what you do to their body. 

 

I will wake up one day and 

like a switch, my feelings have 

been flipped into 'off' mode. 

You walk into the room and my 

heart beats louder rather than stops. 

I will see your arms as a 

foreign language I have no 

interest in trying to learn. 

You will catch me as I fall and 

I will beg you to go on and drop me. 

I will scream and make your 

ears bleed and make sure 

no one ever hears you. 

When your presence invades 

my space, I will just leave rather 

than let you take me over. 

 

See, I am someone who 

does not leave voluntarily,

But rather gets forced 

and shoved out. 

Either by something, or 

someone, or even just myself. 

I don’t leave- I disappear. 

You don’t see me exit,

Only the scars in the 

shape of my footprints, 

that I leave behind. 

I’ve been doing this 

ever since I was born. 

I wasn’t even born, I was 

removed, I was ejected 

at the earliest convenience. 

She was not my mother 

but a body, and i was 

not a child, but a tumor. 

What I am trying to say 

is that love hurts and I 

don't mean it will hurt 

me but it will hurt you. 

You deserve someone 

who will sit and drink 

coffee with you at 5 am,

and not someone who 

suddenly, on a whim, 

decides they prefer tea. 

 

My love is what 

love shouldn’t be. 

Not what love can be, 

or might be, or is even 

sometimes made to be,

But what it is and shouldn’t be. 

 

Out of all of the stories 

and failures I have told you, 

exposed to you, the only 

common denominator is me. 

Out of all of the issues 

I have presented and 

explained to you, the only 

common problem is me. 

 

We have already passed 

high school algebra. 

We know how to solve this-

Simply just mark me 

out of the equation. 

 

X = Y

 

And this = goodbye.