Take Me With You

by Nina G. Jones

I know how cruel this world can be to those of us who wear our imperfections on the outside.

Maybe I have always been hiding, making myself easy to love by giving others what they needed and never asking for anything in return.

He's brutal, but I am the focus of his obsession. Not forgotten, not second place.

I thought being loved was the most gratifying feeling. No, it's being obsessed over. It's having someone so infatuated with you that they would risk everything to have you. That is a high that love can't touch. Love is a slow burn, a stockpot simmering to soften the heart. But this—this is a flash flood, it's the smoke billowing when a steak hits a hot pan. It's threatening, but its fierceness is the very thing love dilutes.

“Who am I?” he asks in that voice, dirty and broken. “I am the person who has nothing to lose but you.”

“I am a man who has risked everything to have you.” He pulls out slowly and plunges into me again. “You are the only thing, Vesp.” He draws himself out and buries himself inside of me. “And you…are my obsession.”

we are both hopelessly bound to the other, holding each other afloat. And if one of us snaps the line or sinks, the other will drown.

I am Hades. I split the earth open and suck her under.

You don't stare the devil in the eyes and come out without some of his sin. You can't beat the devil without becoming like him. You can't appeal to his kindness, so you have to learn to play his games. You lie, you fuck, you manipulate, you fight, you hurl insults, until you do whatever it takes to win the battle. Every time you do those things, you understand him a little more. Until finally, he becomes your ally. You think you've won, that you've made him more like you. But the truth is, it's the other way around. So that even when you win, you've lost.

Though the night will always be my home, I finally have a place in the sun with Vesp.