To those individuals for whom I possess the utmost love and respect.

I love you and I despise you. And it’s this mocking dance between the two forces that simultaneously strengthens and weakens every inch of my being.

I see in your eyes a landscape of incessant suffering, and I ache with you, cry with you. How I wish I weren’t so soft, so tender. Because a heart that’s robed in compassion — a heart that understands — can’t help but love. But I resist and resent you all the same.

You’ve fed me and clothed me. But through your wounded love you’ve held me captive — a marionette in your shadow. Clipped my wings, shackled my feet, pierced my soul with a thousand poisonous daggers. Time and time again I would’ve chosen to stray the empty streets, than to experience such poverty of love.

I longed to run, run, run from you, like a raging, wild animal desperately craving to break free from the confines of its cage and flee its captor. Into the the wild, into the mountains, into the darkness. Somewhere, anywhere! On the brink of madness!

But in the end, I can’t help but love you so. And I wish to kiss your feet in gratitude, for in reducing me to ashes, you’ve given me the sweet gift of life.