How can one mourn what was never there? Grieve that which was never lost? This is a question I ask myself every day, the pain a festering wound in my crooked soul. I mourn the loss of the love that is held so sacred to most but which I never received. I long for the feeling of safety in love, safety in numbers, the togetherness that is human nature. I grieve the death of intimacy in a world where loving is living but loving requires another half and living requires another person, another me in which the desire to be whole isn’t broken, isn’t shattered by a lack of strict structure and rigid romance. I miss the consistency I was never given, the public displays of affection I was never witness to. My foundation is cracked, leaking the love I've forged for myself and the intimacy I falsify cravings for. Love is a four letter lie I tell myself, its loss pulsing through my thoughts and its absence overwhelming me with a morbid mourning of the essence of humanity, humility. Love is a construct that was never built in my blood. Love has left me with a laceration that will never heal, the chance of rescue passing me by without a second glance at the brokenness it's leaving behind.