I was born with a hollow heart.
My mother tried to stuff it with toys, with food, with money.
Until one day she accepted that my heart would always be hollow,
and the empty air in my chambers was filled with love.

I discovered the magic of giving love to others
and receiving the same amount of love back.

When I first met you, I did the same:
I gave you small tubes of love.
I watched you give your affections to others
and my love mingled with yours in your heart
until I couldn’t notice the difference.

You never seemed to notice either.

So I started to give you more.

Every day I would fill cups and bowls
with more and more love to give to you.
The more I obsessed with your love,
the more I disregarded that of my friends and family.

One day, I felt the ladle hit the hard exterior of my chest
and push against my bitter lungs.
So I filled myself with synthetic love,
Produced by my deceptive and idealist mind.

I kept placing teacups of love by your feet.
But I never knew if you took them anymore,
if you poured them into your heart
and breathed in the feeling of satiation.

I felt my heart crack one day;
it had thirsted too long for your approval.

Every day apart from you,
more cracks and fissures surfaced.
The fantasies tried to cling to the walls of my heart
As the love slowly seeped out, day by day.

I didn’t know what to do.

I tried to scrape up the escaping love,
putting it on miniature spoons to lay at your feet.
I watched you for a sign,
a sign that you would ever give me any of your love.

My toes were the first to turn blue.
Then it slowly wrapped up my ankles
to grab my calves, thighs, hips.
It raced up my stomach, down my arms,
to my small fingers and nails.
Until every piece of me but my heart
shone blue and eerily still.

As I float above myself now,
listening to my heart’s final pleas
for just a taste of your approval,
I must ask you with my last seconds:
how could you be so cruel?