i hate kissing you.

I hate kissing you. I hate kissing you because it's all I want to think about for days, the way you taste and the way you'd hold my face, and the way you'd breathe against my neck. I hate kissing you. I hate lying in your bed, waiting for you to close the curtains, waiting for you to climb into bed and under my arms. I hate kissing you. I hate waking up and tracing your stupid tattoos, I hate your morning breath, and I hate the way you hold me so hard against you because I'm so warm and soft, as you say.

I feel so cold, knowing I'll be longing for this for days after you're gone.

I hate kissing you.

I adopted the ill-conceived 'cool-girl' persona, the one that makes you think I don't care. I mean, I am the cool girl. I'm the cool girl you can talk to and laugh with and say "You're so fun" with, but I'm also the cool girl that leaves in the morning and makes your bed and doesn't bug you to text me for a week. I disappear when you need me to. I'm the cool girl that's here when you want me and out of sight when you don't. I'm the cool girl you always wanted, but not really. I'm the cool girl.

I hate kissing you and I'm the cool girl.

I go home and think about you endlessly for days, hoping to see your stupid name illuminating my screen. I set you to 'do not disturb' and I push you to the limbo of 'restricted' on my Instagram. I mute you. I want to see your name and I don't want to see your name. I don't want to be disturbed by your presence, but I also relentlessly check every hour. I want my peace. You've given me nothing but peace.

Days after you, I'm full of questions. Questions I will never ask.

Why do you wake up early to make me breakfast? Why do you kiss my forehead? Why do you pick up your guitar and strum my favorite Neil Young song every morning? Why do you get up early to cover my eyes with a shirt when the sun rises, because you know the light wakes me up? Why do you buy my favorite ice cream and keep it stocked, even though you hate it? Why do you make me like you, then disappear when I need you? Why do you act as if you care--even worse, why do you tell me you care?

I know you're lying in bed swiping on the apps. I know you only want to meet people and fuck them and feed off of their bodies and play guitar for them in the mornings and hold them and tell them you care.

'I'm not my negative thoughts' a self-help app notification glows on my screen. I exit out of it. I am not myself anymore.

I hate kissing you and I am a cool girl and I am not myself anymore.

I try to find things to hate about you. Maybe that will help. Maybe that will help lessen your hold over me. Maybe I can actually make myself hate you. I notice there's food in your teeth and don't notify you for a bit until it disappears on its own. I try and engrain that image in my head. You and your goofy grin with a piece of spinach between your teeth. Nothing. I try imagining things--imagining you taking a bath and lying there with your long legs bent, staring at the ceiling in silence. Nothing. I imagine you waiting in a long line, by yourself, awkward and not knowing what to do with your arms. Nothing. I imagine you running in flip-flops. Nothing. I imagine you in a group of people trying to make a joke that falls flat.

Nothing.

I try to talk bad about you. This might help. I tell my friends you're bad in bed, I tell them you don't know how to touch me, I tell them you still talk to your ex, I tell them I think you might be inbred. The last one is based on your jaw locking and the fact you're from a rural town in South Carolina, and it's absolutely false but it makes me feel better to say. Who cares, I justify it, he's hurting me.

But you're not hurting me. You think everything is cool. I'm the cool girl.