Hollow

     "Have you ever loved someone as much as you hated them?"
     "Why?"
     I've never been able to understand why I felt so much hatred for those I loved. Can it even be called hatred at all, or even love at all? Perhaps it has always been fear — fear of bones and ashes, of what came before and what will come after. Lying in bed, with the curtains drawn and the city lights blinding, I'd whisper to myself, "Never again, never again, never again..." only to find that the words had seeped into my pillow in the night. Hollow with empty promises, it sagged like skin stripped of its bones. I don't want to be loved, I'd tell myself, because I knew how much I did.
     Love me, because love doesn't exist, and I have tried everything that does.