**Gone was my beloved muse, the puppet I tried to play, and the one I tried to love. But love is not love when you’re loving an image not the person. I am, at bottom, an obsessive spoiled brat, who believed every color, every word, every coincidence, to be a symbol that we were meant to be. I told myself I was letting go of my inhibitions, but why did I find myself contorting my identity, just so I could deem myself worthy to be with him? I didn’t think he could love me for me, as the me that I find myself looking at, didn’t fit in my perverse aesthetic. I could only talk to him behind a digital barricade, so that I would maintain an illusion, an appearance that was almost perfect, but not too perfect so I wouldn’t scare him away. I was careful, measuring the amount of **

**truth I’d pour in a cup, and the amount of facade I was willing to give.**

**In the end, when we both locked eyes for the first time, when he saw the blood seeping through the mask, he saw me, which made him he run away. After he was gone, I noticed a few slight changes, I noticed the colors weren’t actually as saturated, the art was actually quite unromantic, and the day wasn’t actually spectacular. Now I’m here, on the bed, and I guess I’m going to sleep now that my nights are regular again.**