Atlas

I am not built to stand the test of time, I will leave, with no warning, and no note. I will leave you behind when times get hard, when you need me most. Temporary devotion, I can do; not commitment. To commit to somebody is to give them half of yourself forever, to be devoted is to give them your entirety, when you can — moreso, when you actually want to.

If you find yourself thinking that we are so alike, that is when you could not be further from what I am. I am a mirror, I am every thought inside of your mind, and every word you do not say. For the short time that I am yours, I will morph into you; I will eat you whole, consume you, devour you. Your very identity becomes what you see in front of yourself — I am a black hole wearing your face.

And you have never felt so seen, so understood. It would be foolish to believe I could have been anyone's before I was yours, and that I could belong to anybody else after you. I have become your soulmate, it was meant to be. Our love was written in the stars, wasn't it?

You come home to find me wearing your clothes, playing old records I adore you adore, and cooking our your favourite meal. It is a beautiful cycle, our short, idyllic life together plays out like a movie. I know you, I see you, I become you.

It is not until long after I have left, that you realise the person you were in love with, did not, in fact, exist. You have been left behind, empty and alone, in a state of withdrawal. In losing me, you have lost yourself. Surely you didn't think it would be temporary; when I kissed your lips and took your soul with me. You can never have it back, you have become a tile in the mosaic that I am; built from every person I have ever loved and left.

Someday, you will see me again. I'll be draped in the robes of another man, sipping on wine we you hated — it is his favourite; it is my favourite — and you will wonder if I was ever truly yours. I don't look like you myself anymore; I am a black hole, wearing his face.

I am, for lack of a better word, a shapeshifter. I can be anyone but myself; I killed him in cold blood, and I cannot find him, I do not remember his face.