Because it is bitter and because it is my heart

(i) He gave her ladybirds.

My boy and I, we take it in turns to be callous and rough with each other's hearts. Every so often, when I've annoyed him sufficiently, he'll squeeze mine between his teeth and I'll grow angsty and clichéd and cry unholy water. And that's where we were when he took my hand and forced my breath to slow with his.

(ii) Oh how it leaks into every vein of my life ..

Hah! A phone clasped in my hand because I love him far too much & far too often. It's grotesque, yet hilarious, that I buy his time for a small fortune, & sometimes I pick at my words like a perfect, skeletal anorexic, & sometimes I binge on them & they appear to him foul-smelling & all a mess. He is my food, or my food is him, because I cannot get enough & want him all now at once. But then I realise my wicked ways (oh the guilt!) & two fingers down the throat, out comes all my anger.

(iii) Conclusion; Becase it is bitter and because it is my heart.

This is why I tell you it's over whilst whispering I love you. This is why I cry at Mr Wickham's cruelty but refuse to let you comfort me when another part of us slowly dies.

Because it is bitter, and because it is my heart, I close the door in your face, hoping you will leave me alone to my girls and my solitary misery. Perhaps if you were not so beautiful and did not have that aura of a boy who has splintered every girl's heart, I would let you into my bed (out of my, ultimately, chaotic head).

Of course I want to spend dark nights with you, and would, if only I trusted myself to let you go, come the morn. This is why I have padlocked my ribcage tight shut, safe from an invasion of your oft-proclaimed love; because it is bitter and because it is my heart!