Collateral: Dear Love,

Dear Love,

It's me, Gabrielle.
I know there's no need for introduction because well, you made me. I've always known you. First from my mother and my father. My grandparents, cousins, siblings, family.
Then I found you in friends.
And one of those friends was a boy.
I saw you differently in him. This was the first time you felt different.
You felt strange, but I liked this feeling.
I heard you in his laugh.
I saw you in his smile.
You weren't in his eyes, but you were in mine when I looked at him.
You were in my lungs when I breathed him in.
My heart skipped a beat when I heard his voice.
You ran through my blood when he was near.
You were warm and colorful.
And you weren't there when I longed for you in his touch.
As the years went by, this boy from my youth finally found you like I did.
I finally saw you in his eyes, but only when he looked at her.
I heard you in his laugh, but it sounded different, because he heard you in her.
I saw you in his smile, but it was brighter, because when he smiled, it was you in her.
And when I saw him to uch her with you, I felt like I couldn't breathe.
I didn't feel you anymore, I felt pain.
This is when I felt betrayed. By you. You took him from me. She took him away from me, but he wasn't even mine.
Then I found you again, in another boy.
It wasn't like the first time, like the boy from my youth.
You were different because i saw you in his eyes when he looked at me. I saw you in his smile and i heard you in his laugh.
I felt you in his touch.
But you didn't stay long.
Your friend Time came along and pain showed his face again.
But Time brought you back.
The boy from my youth showed his face again.
And though I felt you again, he felt your friend, pain, in the girl he found you in.
This saddened me, because i wanted him to be happy.
Even if he didn't find you in me, I knew he found you in her and i saw you in him when he saw her.
I wanted this chance to show how I saw you in him.
But it felt like sin. Like Greed. So I accepted your friend, Pain, again and welcomed him as my own friend.
Pain was no stranger now.
I didn't mind his company this time, because the boy from my youth still saw you in her and she is what made him happy.
I tried to find you again, but it was all in the wrong way.
You weren't in the touch of a stranger.
But with chance, I thought I found you again.
You knocked on my door, but I only cracked it open.
I didn't welcome you in like before.
Pain was more of my friend than you.
This new boy showed me what you should be like.
Materialistically.
You weren't in his eyes,or his smile, or his touch.
And I wasn't surprised.
When I was about to open the door and welcome you back in again, Love, Pain, was there for me again and shut you out.
And when, Pain,  shut you out, he brought me this new "friend".
This new feeling.
A drug.
Numb.
The only time this "drug" is ineffective, is when I see him. The boy from my youth. Because you are still there. But so is she. So Pain comforts me.
Pain is my friend.
Pain is there.
Pain turns off the front porch light and you Love, are cold ,and dark, and you linger in the shadows.