There are no doors in this house. The walls aren't closing in, but there's barely any room to draw a breath. My limbs are pinned against the wooden floorboards, my mouth sewn shut with loose thread from the moth-bitten curtains. The glass in the windows is warped and bubbling, frosted over with a coating of delusion. Darling, being with you does not break down these walls. It does not open the door and lets me escape, for there is no way out. But being with you smashes the windows wide open, scattering jagged pieces of glass across my floor and giving me a million glittering new ways to hurt myself. Being with you lets the air rush in, rips the stitches from my mouth and lets me finally scream for help. But I don't want your help, darling. Loving you fills the house with poison; smells so sweet but sounds even sweeter. A malignant cloud of your lies and your praise and your false compliments clouding my brain until everything in my house looks beautiful. Darling, you are so beautiful. You say you want to help me tear down my house, that it will make me better. But I am not ready to face your world. You say you want to care about me, that I matter. But I'm not the most important thing to you. I can never be truly happy until I dissolve into oxygen, and you breathe me in and I can swirl around in your lungs and be the one thing keeping you alive. Not happy, but alive. I can't make you happy. I can never make you feel the way he does. And that wound rips open everytime I look at you and salt is poured in whenever you speak. I must be doing something wrong. You will never see how much I want you to be happy, and how much I want to give you everything. But my presence is suffocating you. So I will stay in my house. I will buy new windows with bulletproof glass so you can't break them. I will crawl inside myself and build a new house from my ribcage. You can't find me there, and I can't hurt you. Darling, maybe then you'll be happy.
