Stop.

Stop being so nice to me. Stop being so understanding and sweet and funny. Stop asking me how my day was, if I had fun or not, what I think about things. Stop telling me about your life, about all the things you never tell anyone else, about your thoughts and opinions. Stop. 

Stop being you. 

Please stop, because it's so much easier to pretend to be over you when you're tired and stressed and busy and sick. It's so much easier to believe that you don't care about me at all. It's so much easier to think that you take me for granted, that you don't consider me your friend, that you don't want me to be around you. It's so much easier when you're unkind to me. Maybe it hurts more, because it makes me feel hopeless, but that's why it's easier. To hope is to be heartbroken. 

I can't do this. I can't keep scanning crowds for your face. I can't take the ice cream that you push into my hands, ice cream that you haven't even touched yet and are offering to me, and eat it. I can't let you feed me and poke spoonfuls of sweetness into my mouth. I can't walk next to you and bump into your arm and feel you stay there and lean back into me. I can't feel the back of mine brush yours and not think about trying to hold your hand. I can't sit on your bed, surrounded by everything that smells like you, and listen to you talk about your day. I can't accept your offers of blankets and agree to go through all your stories with you. I can't lie down next to you and feel the crown of my head brush yours. I can't look over at you and see your face an inch away from mine, smiling up at a screen that you're sharing with me. I can't roll onto my side and rest my hand on your shoulder and feel the fabric of your shirt under my fingertips, the only barrier between my skin and yours. I can't feel your chest rising at the same time as mine as we inhale together. I can't breathe in and pretend that I'm not trying to fill my lungs with as much of you as I can. I can't get up off your bed and pretend that I want nothing more than for you to ask me to stay. I can't wake you up in the mornings and pretend that seeing you sleepy and safe and so so young isn't my favourite thing ever. 

I can't do this anymore. 

(I never could. But still I fell for you. I still jumped off the cliff and didn't even realize that I was falling until everything else was a blur around me, until I saw nothing but you.)

You think you're being nice to me, and you are. And when you do, you make me so, so happy - happy enough that everything feels perfect and it even feels like maybe, maybe, you could feel the same about me. I know that there's no point in hoping, but when you're this nice to me, when you're sweet and kind and thoughtful and understanding, I can't help myself. You make every moment with you feel like everything is painted in technicolor, and every moment without you is nothing but grey ash. 

I just... can't. 

The only way to distract myself would be to cut you out completely, but I can't do that to you. You would be so confused and so hurt, because you'd thought we were just friends. I can deal with my own pain, my own hurting. But I can't deal with yours. 

Wanting something that I can never have is not something that ever ends well. 

It hurts. It hurts when you stop. It feels like someone is reaching a hand into my chest, knocking all my ribs aside and wrenching my heart out from behind my sternum. I can't stop thinking about you. 

But at least this way I don't hope. 

E = hv