I didn't know there was such a thin line between love and hate until I met you. Until I felt the burning rage of betrayal lighting a fire in the whites of my eyes. I didn't know I could ever hate you. I didn't know that one day my tears of sadness would turn into tears of anger. I didn't realize I could hate you until loving you hurt too much. Every day waking up to an empty presence not only in my bed but in my heart. That kind of longing for someone will kill you. It will eat you from the inside out and leave your soul ravaged by envy's green hands, pieced apart and broken - scattered in disarray.

Loving you was too easy. It was like riding my bike for the first time or learning to swim. There was a kind of freedom that came with loving you, embracing you - a man that was so beautifully scarred. It was like each scar was a piece of who you were. Maybe ragged and rough but still this unique beauty always showed true. Loving you was like loving a puzzle, always trying to put the pieces back together. At first, there was a kind of thrill that came with trying to put someone back together, but eventually came the exhaustion. It started to take its tole. It weighed on me and every day I tried to save you I began to lose a piece of myself in return. I lost my morals, my values, my strength. I didn't realize that loving a broken man brings loss. I didn't realize that as I was trying to fix you, I was falling apart, just as you had. When my kind words were rejected by mean ones I began to realize what I had gotten myself into. When your eyes pierced into me like knives I began to understand. And when your voice cut into me I knew that everything I had been running away from since I was small, had just caught up with me.

I had promised myself I would not be that girl. The one that falls in love with a man just like her father. I promised myself I wouldn't allow that to happen, but sometimes fate has other plans. Sometimes fate decides it needs to teach you a lesson. And let me tell ya, that lesson is a real bitch.

You can't fix a broken man. You can't love someone enough to cure them of their mental illness. You can't be generous enough to fix their heart or be kind enough to mend their soul. You just can't fix people. No matter how bad you wish you could. The only thing that happens when you try is you become broken too. It gets to the point where you have become so shattered that you don't even recognize the person you see in the mirror. What used to be a strong, independent woman is now the victim of mental abuse and manipulation. As you keep staring at yourself in the mirror, rage boils. Look at what he's done to you? Look at how he's used you? In just one instant all that love turns into hate. And you're done.

You're done loving someone who doesn't deserve it. You're done giving him shot after shot after shot because every time he shoots, he misses. You're done handing your heart on a silver platter just so he can smother it with his darkness. You're done. And that love that once filled you up is now anger and resentment not only for him but for yourself. How could you allow yourself to get this far gone? How could you allow him to treat you like that? I thought you were strong? What is wrong with you?

Well, I can tell you what's wrong with you. You loved a broken man and the only thing that broken men know how to do is break things, so he broke you. One thing I've learned through all this is love never disappears. It either stays or it turns into hate. When you realize that the man you love has hurt you in ways that are unexplainable, you know you can't love him anymore. So, you muster up all that love and turn it into hate. Because loving the devil never did anyone any good.