I Am To Die For

"I wanted him to crave me like cigarettes - one glimpse of my technicolor clothes and the distance between his body and the store window would seem like miles.

He'd be hesitant, looking over his shoulders the whole time, but when he feels the smooth of my plastic skin, I'll be the only thing he'll want. A couple of dollars and some change is all it takes for him to buy my whole package.

He seems happy to touch me again, he can hardly wait to pluck me from the box I've built to shelter myself from exactly this. I can't remember how long I lived in that dark place, but he seemed to pull me from it.

He shows me artificial light, synthetic warmth hiding blue undertones. A glow he has no intention of nursing. A light that always goes out as soon as it gets too cold or starts to rain.

I began to mistake his short-lived burn for the flaming passions I've read about. Yes, he lit me on fire when I hit his lips, but it wasn't worth the numbness I felt when he put me out. And I guess I was his nicotine, because it always ended the same.

Bored or just inconvenienced, he'd step on whatever spark was left in my frail little frame. He'd leave me damp and crumpled and confused and believing that, like a cigarette, I was the one who was toxic.

After allowing him to inhale me so quickly, to reduce me so frequently, after forgetting myself in the wind far too often. I decided I would never be someone's cigarette again.

I decided that I am heroin. I am cocaine. I am ecstacy. Your second thought after hello will be how much it will hurt to say goodbye to me. I'll be hard to get, but you would do anything to earn this high. Even if we never met, you'll always be a little curious.

I am much harder and worth much more than cigarettes, I am not to be thrown in puddles and extinguished. I am to ache for. To pine for. To itch for.

I am to die for."