Whiskey and Lies.

You say you love me, and I want to believe you. But tell me Love, how do I believe that when you are also broken, like me?

When I was fifteen, I used to believe love was simple, you just be there for each other. I used to believe love was Prince kissing Snow white, and Ariel finding her forever and after.  But it took me years and a couple heartbreaks to realize that love wasn't meant to be simple. Love is scars you keep hidden under the sleeves of your shirt, Love is words you wish you had said sooner or never at all. Love is having all the reasons to leave but you still choose to stay, love is like stabbing yourself and liking the pain. Love is an addiction, the kind that makes you numb to everything else. Love is getting drunk over cheap wine and staying up talking all night, but love is also screaming at the top of your lungs and crying your heart out in the middle of the night. Love is chaos, but silence as well. It is all the paradoxes in the world, and still not enough. Not enough to make anyone stay.

You ask me about my regrets, and I tell you about a boy I thought I loved but I couldn't. Would you think I'm lying if I say that I wish I could love him because he deserved the world? You wish you could just love some people, but if we could chose whom to love wouldn't it all be easier?
I ask you about yours, and you tell me once you waited too long to say hello.

You ask me about the first time I fell in love in love, and I tell you about the guy with pretty eyes and a voice deeper than thunder. I tell you that we wrote each other letters scribbled on the last page of our notebooks and I kept the chocolate wrappers hidden in my diary. I tell you about the promises we made, and that was the first time I knew forevers were just countable days.
I ask you about your first, and you tell me about the girl with a smile that could calm all your demons down. You tell me about her eyes, how they were never consistent and how you didn't realize what it meant. You tell me about her hands - always cold, and her heart the warmest shade of yellow.

We talk through the night and you tell me your secrets - you tell me how you once stole money from your father's wallet. You tell me you once ran away far from home, but you missed your mother so you came back soon.
I tell you all about how I started hurting myself, from begging someone to stay to scarring my skin all the way. I tell you about my father who left my mother for someone else, and that's what scared me the most about love - you never know how long you're going to be in it. There were actually no forevers in love.
And you listened keenly to all my words, like you were memorizing them to hurt me all over again.

You traced my palms and followed it up to my wrists, you looked at my face and caressed my cheeks. I could see in your eyes how broken you were, how many words unsaid still lingered there. I light up a fag, and you take a sip of your whiskey - our eyes met and you inched towards me.
Don't come close, I might not be able to take it.

You held me in your arms like you would never let me go, and the warmth made me wish for you to hold me a little longer. I could hear your heartbeat faster every second, and my breath felt heavier on your neck. You hold my face in your palms, and look at me in the eyes. Whiskey breath, "I want you in my life."

I laugh unapologetically hoping it wasn't a lie,  "You're just drunk Darling, call it a night."

You hold my face again, "I know you have heard these lies, I promise this won't be the same."

I woke up in the morning, I guess I just had a bad dream. I look for you, but you were nowhere to be seen. Our clothes, the bed and the whiskey glass - told me all about your pretty lies. All that remained was a faded taste of your whiskey breath, your lingering smell on my skin, and a vague hope that it wasn't all a dream.