DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE Poem: Conviction, or The Devouring,

One month went by where I didn’t get you. I didn’t feel it. And now it’s been two more
months, and in that time, I have fallen into such deep limerence it’s torn me apart from the
inside out, a wolf gnawing at its own leg.

I’m giving you too much power. It’s not you, not the real you, but the you I’ve conjured in
the fevered dark, the you that has taken root in my ribs and burrowed deep beneath my
skin. It’s the way I perceive you, the way I worship your every step, how I tilt my head to the
light when you enter a room like some pathetic flower craning toward the sun. My devotion
is grotesque, obscene, something sticky and unbearable, a sickness I can’t scrape off my
skin. Before I met you, I felt pretty, I felt enough, I felt like a girl someone might want to
love. And then you touched my world, and suddenly I am nothing but an homely, desperate
thing. I have never felt worse in my life; never felt uglier, fatter, never felt so embarrassed,
never felt so little desire to live.

I am waiting for the this is over phase, but my feelings for you are only getting worse,
spreading like rot, a bruise blooming outward instead of fading away. It’s not even a push
and pull anymore, it’s just push, push, push—until I’m at the cliff’s edge and you’re
standing there, inches away, not even needing to raise a hand to send me over. Just looking
at you is enough. Just knowing I’ll never be looked at in return.

This was always supposed to be about God. But it’s become about you, hasn’t it? Where is
my God when I peer at your pale skin and imagine my bite marks? You make me want to sin
in ways I can’t even name. You make me want to swallow my own heart whole. They tell me
to let you go, that I have to, that I must, but how do you release something that never
belonged to you in the first place?

That’s not an option when you feel nothing for me, when I am nothing but background
noise, a flicker of static in your bright and brilliant world. Am I the childlike jester, put here
to amuse you? Am I the fat cow you wouldn’t even consider for dinner? They can’t make me
give you up if you never once reached for me. It was never yours to take, and yet I am still
hollowed out. I am still emptied. I must be hideous, right? That’s what it is? My
asymmetrical eyes? The stretch marks? The too-large nose, the soft body, the too-small
teeth? You’re hardly perfect yourself, but I would consume every inch of you without
hesitation. You are infinitely more beautiful than I could ever be.

I’m thinking about starving myself, starting tomorrow. Maybe if I shrink, you’ll see me. Maybe if I disappear, you’ll notice. I never thought about Botox until you walked into my life. Needles, chemicals, risk—games I swore I’d never play, games you’ve suffered through, games I now consider like a whispered promise.

How I wish I never joined. I don’t know if this was ever meant to be—how could something this painful be an act of God? Today was unbearable. I almost had to go to the hospital, just to escape my own mind, just to get away from myself. I wanted to feel something sharper, something real, something to drag me out of this endless loop of ache.

We could never work. You’re uninterested, unavailable, untouchable. And I’m just obsessed, infatuated, a fool with a noose of my own making. Maybe I am a little bit in love. Maybe that’s the problem. You are out of my league, a plane of existence above me, and I should know better, I should turn away, but oh— I’ve never met anyone like you. I could live off the sound of your voice alone.

If I say one more thing, it’s that it’s not your fault you hurt me. It’s my fault. My mind is built for this kind of suffering, this kind of spiraling, this kind of one-track devotion. I am writing this to try to let you go, but I already know I won’t. A couple of people know. The girl told me she could see it in the way I look at you—I had no idea I was that obvious. That’s humiliating. That’s horrifying. I don’t think I can talk to you anymore. I adore you, I really fucking do, but I can’t keep peeling off my own skin like this. I can’t keep losing more of myself in something I never had to begin with.

This is my conviction to leave you alone. I’m sorry for the unwanted attention, the lines I have crossed, the boundaries I have ignored. I am hoping, praying, that you don’t know, that you never know, that maybe you just think I needed a friend. I do need a friend. But they told me I have to strip myself of all feelings before I can be that.

I am convinced you love her. And I love her too, God, I do, but her beauty was the first sign, the first nail in the coffin, the first proof that you could never look my way. Why would you, when you’ve seen the loveliest fruit on the tree? Why settle for me, when you have tasted the best? I cried so much today it could have been a personal record. I also scratched myself raw, screamed into the receiver, got multiple worried calls, lived in my own selfish suffering for what felt like centuries. It’s 4 AM now, and still, you have not left me.

Why can’t you be attracted to me? Why can’t you love me back? Why can’t you be within my faith? I adore you, I adore you, I adore you. I do not know how I will survive this. With the utmost love and ruin, Taylor