This guilt that has grip of my soul has me teetering on the edge of irrepressible tears. I never meant to hurt him. I never meant to make him fall in love. I never did anything to avoid it either. He fell so fast, probably faster then any of the others but he fell just the same. The fact that he is one among many does not ease the guilt, in fact it enhances it. It’s made worst by the sincerity felt in his voice, the moisture in his eyes, and the pain and longing he put onto the pages. I want to love him with the same passion with which he loves me, if only to ease his aching. I do not take pleasure in his submissiveness. Maybe his submissiveness is the repellant that keeps me away. What disturbs me further is the certainty that at any given moment he’d gladly sacrifice anything to be in my good favor again.

I cannot control the direction these ephemeral unions taken, nor can I tame my emotions. I was undoubtedly an obliging party at the start of our short-lived union, but towards the end I could not contain my distaste for the kind of man he revealed himself to be. Why should I be unhappy? Why should he? He is willing to sacrifice his happiness for mine. Why am I so relentlessly unwilling to do the same for him? I may have lured him unassumingly into a false sense of comfort. I admit to playing the role of loving companion immaculately. Was I not sincere, not genuine? Of course I was, but something, some switch forever turned off within me and I became another person towards him. The truth is that had he taken the time to know me before he fell, he would have recognized the err of “love at first sight”. I cannot apologize for being all that I am, for this is all that I’ve known and all that I ever will be and know. I embody love; I am part and parcel of it. That knowledge does not ease the knot from my stomach.

You can't win
You can't break even
And you can't get out of the game