there's always one question that peers through the haze that seems to cloud my mind, as if it's some pesky arrow that pierces right through all the useless smoke and clears a tiny, barely-there path of light.

why?

why do they matter so much?

sometimes, the answer is right in my grasp. i'm able to hold the—self—reassuring words close to my heart, believing the whispers I make up to myself because i'm just that pathetic, and fool myself for a few hours that everything is fine, that i'm fine, that—

sometimes, it's a bit worse. just a little.

a little, i tell myself, when my heart can't stop hammering in my chest and waves of words can't stop crashing down like waves against a pitiful, littered beach. i tell myself that all of it is fine; that i'll get over it sometime.

it doesn't seem like a little when all of a sudden i can't seem to breath just because the weight matters that shouldn't weigh anything is holding me down, or when tears form just behind my eyes but never fall, as if i's a fragment of an imagination.

the answer should be clear.

i love them.

i love them.

"loving" has been a big mistake for as long as i've lived, and i've told myself over and over again that it wasn't a good idea, yet the lock to my heart has been turned and i find myself greedily soaking up every bit of warmth i can find.

if i love someone, they would end up leaving, and it would hurt. i used to be angry over that; i'd curse and scream and bemoan the people who left, but now—

it's so, so clear; clear as freshly-cleaned glass on a calm afternoon, and i hate it.

so many people have left, and faces start to blur and change with each passing year, and i can't help but let out a choked sob as i realise that it's all my fault.

it's my fault for not being enough. for believing in such a faraway concept too easily and thinking i'm close when i'm actually not, for having twisted so much until everything is black and clinging to a fragile thread of friendship as if it's my way out.

all i've done is annoy them in the end.

i've clung to them so needily and assumed too many things. some of them break the friendship hurt, like they need space to breath and i'm the toxic gas in the room. some of them don't care.

i don't know which is worse, but the end result is all the same.

so now the childish innocence is shattered, there's no more cheesy instagram filters on saturated memories, there's not another time where i can smile—a genuine one, at least—and know that everything's going to be fine.

because it's not.

hell, it's already started, haven't it?

i don't have the faintest idea why there are people who can still stick to me. it must be out of pity, out of the fact that i've stuck myself to them and they're too nice; maybe they've been fed up since the beginning and it's only a matter of time.

(remove the "maybe" and the truth would stand there in all its ugly glory.)

but, i breath, i love them, i love them, i love them, and was love ever supposed to hurt this much?

the loud smiles are muted. a message is typed out halfway—just a casual greeting—and then hastily deleted. i stand back.

in the end, monsters like me never change. all they do is destroy other people's lives.

so i'll just destroy my own before i can taint their brilliance any further.

i love you.

please love me back.

no, that's not quite right; that's not my wish.

please know that i love you.

;