I have become a conquistador. 

It is no longer a question of love. It is not a question of attraction or matches or things falling into place. These things do not fall like paper cranes, they are placed, carefully, for you to see. They are a roadmap. They are markers leading you to the place I want you. And you'll discover them, little love, as if by an accident and revel in the perfection of chance. Of fate. But fate has no hold over me and my affairs, I make a point of it. 

No, it's not about love. Not anymore. This is revenge, preemptive and generalized to an extreme. Do you think I like you, your touch, your flirting and your compliments? Do you think my reciprocation in flirting means I accept you, I want you, I even like you? Do you think that, at the very least, it means I want you like you want me? No, I can't. I don't. What I am saying to you with my careful smile, my kind words and my flesh beneath your skin, so loud that I fear you will sense it beneath the thin layer of skin beneath which it boils in my blood, is simple. I hate you. I hate you and I want to punish you, not just for what you do and might do to me, but for who you are. I loathe every inch of you, every breath, every word you speak makes me twist up inside more with revulsion. I know you. I know what you want. I know what you are and what you do and, oh, I am so tired of it. 

Let me explain my attraction to you, if you choose to call it that. I want to have you in the palm of my hand and then I want to throw you away. I want you to call me. I want you to miss me and not miss you. I want you to become pathetic for me, overtly. I want you to have something you want and have it taken away from you. I want this from you because so many times it happens to me. There is no future to this, no kind ending. There is only me getting what I want, or me not getting what I want. 

Not with the innocent, I am afraid to touch good people anymore for fear of leaving stains. But you. Yes, you. I'll touch you, rake with my fingernails and leave marks on you. I know the song by heart and I can sing it convincingly, even as it grows tired and common. I do it out of hate, the ion of sadness that's burned and burned and become energized to a state of praxis. There is only one escape, one weakness, to this blind brutality. I shouldn't tell you, but I will. When I meet you, I want you, I do want you. That is the only time I want anything from me or that you can do anything for me. It's that need that's the only power a boy can have over me. If he pulls away before I have him, there is an echo of hurt that ripples through me. I'll want you more then any other, I'll follow you. I'll entice you. I'll do what I can and what I have to to have you. If you stay away, you'll always have power over me. You'll never be a broken product of my revenge, tainted in my own eyes. 

Conquistador, I'll slash and burn through them. I do not want to love you, I want you to love me and hurt. It makes me less sad, because when you're hurting I'm not alone. I am your intangible, I am the myth you can't quite lay to rest. I breathe life into it and leave it looming before you, cowering you into my hand. Herr god, Herr lucifer, beware, beware. Out of the ash I rise with my red hair, and I eat men like air.