Pretty Pieces

Pretty Pieces  
  
By: charisma  
  
Summary: Buffy's rages about love, all of the hurt and anger she carries from it.  
  
Disclaimer: Well, I would like to think that I do own the characters, except I don't want to end up in court telling dear Jossy-pooh were he can go. So, nope, don't own anything at all, except for the computer I'm writing on (actually, I don't even own that. Damn.)  
  
Feedback: Yeah, sure. I mean, reviews make the world go round. What, you didn't know that? Well, now you do.  
  
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"I'm tired of unhappy ever after endings. I'm tired of make believe heroes. I'm tired of waking up here. I'm tired of loving you."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*  
  
I have to wonder if true love exists.  
  
Love is like a precious gift, wrapped up in pretty paper with a huge bow on top. You unwrap it slowly, anticipation building up of the gift inside. You can't wait to see what you've been given, this secret treasure that you somehow found and no one else has. And you unwrap, setting aside the paper for later, to re-use, just like those bittersweet memories. You come to the huge box, and you're so happy, you want to laugh and cry, all at the same time. Excited, but scared that at any time it will all fade away, fade away so that nothing is left and you wondered if it even existed at all. Slowly, you open the box, and then you look inside.  
  
It's empty. And you heart breaks into a million pieces as easily as that pretty china your mother has saved away for good occasions.  
  
You can cry, you can scream, but nothing will bring that happiness back. And that agonizing pain, almost delicious in it's torment, rips you apart from the inside out. It eats away at you, and you feel those pieces of your heart swept into a little container, the one neatly labeled as 'ex'. And that rage builds up, that red, blinding rage caused by your despair in not getting what you wanted, not getting what you wished for and hoped for and dreamed about. It's like being denied that treat you've craved, that sweet bite of a fantasy. Because that's what it is, a fantasy. And dreams don't really come true, and no one is ever truly happy. Fairy tales lie, and we want to die all because we'll never know that happy ever after ending.  
  
It's like a drop of water after a trek through the desert. You always want more, demand better, but that's all you'll get. The well has run dry. The lake is empty. So, you thirst after it, and nothing can ever quench that gripping thirst. In your mind, you know that you'll never get it, but still, you push on, because your heart won't accept it. Your mind yells it's warning, screams that only pain will come from it all, but the hearts' stubborn. It ignores those promises of death, and the memories of that suffocating despair so deep that you were drowning in your own tears, salty and hot as they coursed down your face. All you want is that love.  
  
All four of them left me. I knew it was inevitable, especially with the first and the last. Ironic that they were both vampires, and I was sworn to kill them. Ironic that one was good, and the other evil. But the true irony is the fact that I loved each of them too much, and that's why they pushed me away. See, with Angel, I was needy and clingy, always affectionate and wanting him to love me back. Like a puppy dog that needed some reassurance that I was cared for, that I was actually in love. And he got tired of it, tired of the denied lust, and tired of the fact I was dragging him down from being the person he could truly be. So he said good- bye, and I was left dying because I loved him more than he did me. I loved him more than he could ever love me, and he knew it. He knew it and didn't care.  
  
I hate him now, even if I will always care for him. I loathe that he would never love me back like I loved him. All I ever wanted back was his love, and he didn't love me enough.  
  
With Spike, it was as different as it could possibly be. He loved me around the world and back, but I could never return his love, because I knew it was wrong. And that fact ruled my decisions, clouded my sight and my heart. He tried to give me everything I wanted, but I wouldn't accept it. I tried to ignore it all, tried to make him go away because I didn't think I could tell him that I didn't love him in the end. And he was like the puppy this time, satisfied with those weak scraps I gave him, still loving me after I kicked him around. Sure, we hurt the ones we love, but I stepped on his heart and ground it with a stiletto heel. I was cruel and malicious, because I had this free flowing love and I didn't know what to do with it. He knew I loved him back, but it wasn't enough for him. He wanted to feel my love. He ended up leaving too.  
  
I don't hate him now, and I will always love him. My heart breaks at the fact that I never took the chance to have that love forever. Now all I want is his love back, but he loved me too much and I couldn't take it.  
  
Love is so dangerous, so scary that it's almost evil. It makes you do things that you would never do under normal circumstances, and it cuts you up inside. After you've had your heart broken you could never be the same again, because that wave of memories flood your mind whenever you close your eyes, whenever you try to sleep. The dreams haunt you, make you wish that you never received that empty package in the first place. Love is expectance, and love is pain. You crave it, but your not satisfied even when you get it. You need it, but you hope that it never hurts. It reminds you of your insecurities and deepest, hidden desires, all that you are and all that you could never be.  
  
And I could never be the perfect lover for any of them.  
  
When it's all over, when the happiness is done and reality kicks in, you look at the pretty patterns your insides make on the floor, that waterfall of tears that tumbles down you cheeks and disappears off your chin. It's like your screaming bloody fucking murder, but no one can hear you. Or no one wants to hear you, because really, they don't care. They just want to be happy, and it doesn't matter if no one else is. You don't matter to anyone but yourself, and it's so lonely, and you grow so cold that even the dead envy you. And you feel like laughing, an insane laugh, a cackle that you need to get rid of because you are crazy. You are insane, and you don't care who knows it. You've been driven insane by that sweltering pain, and by your own dreams of sweet happiness in the sunset, complete with your shining knight in armor, and a gleaming white stallion.  
  
But there's no such thing as knights, and white horses only belong to racetracks.  
  
We can deny all we want, but love affects us all. I can lie and say I brushed my pain off, that I stood my ground and fought that thick fog of black torture off. But I didn't; I still hurt, and I've become bitter and angry. I hate what I can't have, I detest all that I want. It's like tasting heaven, and knowing that you'll never get to have another taste again. And you regret not remembering every sight and smell, and you wish you had been more observant, more careful, that you had seen all the signs that your pleasure would soon be gone. You wish that you hadn't taken advantage of it, and not blown it all away. And then, if your lucky and you do have it all again, you realize that you can't enjoy it, because your dead to it all. You've been given everything but you can't have it, and you want to curl up in a ball and die, you want to be washed free of this torment and suffering.  
  
You'll never be free. It haunts you forever, until your ultimate death.  
  
It' sick and twisted; it's like it was made to bring people down to their knees, to make people cry blood tears, to admit that they can never be happy. That realization hits us like the salty tang of sweat, like the sour burst of a lemon, and the bitterness of vinegar. No longer is love innocent, it's dirty and unclean. More rare than yellow diamonds, and more expensive than the finest platinum. People can always buy love, but almost no one can honestly achieve it, and it's never given freely. To acquire love is all you'll ever need in life, but I don't know anyone who really has it. Oh, of course I know people who think they do, but they're under a sick pretense, blanketed in a false security that makes them blind and vulnerable. Love is delicious, and it's bad, cruel and painful and sweet and it never lasts forever. It can't because people change, and love can't because it can only grow or die. For love to change, it would have to care. But love doesn't care who it destroys, what it burns, where it resides. It only cares to eat away at the souls it finds.  
  
Destiny screwed you over, and you want to punish anyone that destiny skipped. You want them to be unhappy, you want them to know the death of false love. Feel that knife slide through you like warm butter, that milky oozing of hot blood as it trickles down to meet the red puddle at your feet. And it's funny, funny that all you want to do is die. Why? Because he didn't love you back. Love is pure, but it's also black. It runs hot, but in truth it's only fiery ice that numbs you on the inside. It's sweet, but the sugar coating is only there to mask the sour bitterness inside. It's good, but it also has a dark side. Light, but the night blankets it. A walking contradiction, it fools us and tempts us, eats away at us and thrives on our loss. It comes from the very devil himself, and that's why there's no such thing as true love.  
  
The only thing true about love is its eternal torment and agony.  
  
~FIN~ 


End file.
