is that what love was?

The pictures all have me smiling, but good god it doesn’t reach my eyes at all. Something in that girl is rotten. Something in that girl is broken. She reeks of unsolvable, unpretty, unhealthy obsessions. Posturing and crumbling for someone else’s idea of perfection.

Is that what love was? I carved myself out trying to make gold from muddy water. I put on pretty underwear and didn’t buckle my seatbelt. I got drunk too often, but you liked how it made me at sex. Is this what love was. A girl worked boneless, dog-tired, unable to sleep without sobbing.

Is this what love was? Because I look helpless.

– excerpt from a book I’ll never write