Do not love me, I ask, for my insides are like wilted flowers; I’m dried up and broken and pieces of me fall away in the darkness of night.

Do not love me for I’m not sure how much I have left to give or if I’m fixable at all. And I fear my chipped away soul will cause the hollowness in yours.

Do not love me because my loneliness will make you ache in places you didn’t know you could ache. And my damaged reflection will burn holes in your eyes until eventually you’re blinded to my imperfections.

Do not love me for I will stain your skin with the blood of my insecurities until they are a part of you, too.

Do not love me because my mind is a haunted place, it screams and it grabs and it taunts. It does not relent.

Do not love me because I’ll lock you inside the gates of my tormented thoughts and they’ll swallow you until there’s nothing left.

Do not love me because my love for you cannot be pure, it cannot be selfless nor kind. It cannot be free. My love for you will be a challenge, a curse, all of things you wish to escape but you can’t because my love is like poison and there’s no going back.

Do not love me because I cannot bear the look on your face when you see me at my most raw, my most vulnerable. I cannot have you look at me the way I do, or try to understand the tangled mess of my heart.

Do not love me because I cannot promise you it’ll be easy, that you’ll always like me or have the patience to work with the demons which dance around inside my head. I cannot promise that my crazy will match yours or my good days will be enough to overcome the bad.

Do not love me because I cannot handle the day when you don’t anymore. When you’re tired of fighting for me and pulling me back from the edge. When you lose all hope for us because I’m always picking fights over things I’ve made up in my head.

Do not love me, I ask, because I am not enough.