He takes every piece of you. Your intellect and opinions, your vision for the future. He takes the way you’ve decided to present yourself to the world, the way you interact with and manipulate the external, the way you’ve learned to play the game so as to not be drowned in it. He takes every morsel of your strength and any ability to remain distanced. He rips apart the hardened exterior that you grew to love, the only thing that truly loved you back. Loved, in the sense that it would never deny you your happiness, never stand in the way of your freedom, never corner you into an alley of confusion and despair. For ages you loved your armor, and it loved you. Until he took it, replacing the barren space with a mirage of adoration and comfort. He convinced you that you would always be safe there, always be protected and cared for, no matter what. You could never do anything to make him not love you. Regardless, he would always be there. And he made you believe that he could be there, protecting you, nurturing you, loving you better than your armor ever could.
But your armor could never rip your heart out, could never spend centuries of a lifetime cultivating trust, establishing rapport, collage-ing a vision of freedom and unadulterated joy only to wake up one day tired of the dream. Unfulfilled, entirely dissatisfied with the house it’s built. It would never toil and burn at the night-lit candle, endure beatings and nurse scars, only to strip it all down, grind over the long hours of meticulous crafting and clear the way for a new paint job. Your armor would never coax you out into the open where a herd of beasts awaits your demise, it would never toy with your anxieties and diminish your battle cries on the grounds of logical validity. It would never pull at the ends of your strings, toy at the borders of your bruises in an attempt to make you stronger. Tougher. Resilient. Less… emotional. It would never lead you through the forest of hungry animals to an empty pass, sit you down with a kiss, and leave you to fend for yourself. Naked, alone, stripped of every tear-stained lesson. Forced to find your own way out, to find a new vision, a new lust for life, a new manual by which to make your moves. A new destination and nothing to reach it but a clean slate and an empty soul.
But a man. A man in love… he would do anything to trap and trim the object of his affections to fit the gaping void in his life. And afterwards, he will tell you to thank him for it.
