When you were younger, love seemed like a pretty "black or white" thing, but somewhere between 18 to 25 years old, the intentions of those around you faded to gray.

And it's not that you're so naive to believe every word spoken to you-- or that you just recently discovered how complicated feelings can be-- but recently, you were left tasting the salty, rejection of tears running down your face.

What hurts more than the pain of being unwanted is if the feelings were requited, but for some reason he finds you "undateable". This thought will trigger hundreds of thoughts that will keep you up at night.

Thoughts including:

How you are NOT the girl who people meet and think, "I'd like to wake up next to her"; but you are the girl who's called at 3 am, when everyone else is sleeping.

How you relate too much to a corner store down the road from his home. You're there for him, but you're also expired and not entirely necessary, just an easier choice sometimes.

How you play hard to get because of situations like this-- you're only appealing during "the chase". From far away, people can't see all the parts of you that are broken so you tend to wave from a distance.

How there are plenty of fish in the sea, so once you're the fish who is caught, he throws you back. And once you heal from the last time you were hooked, you just fall for sweeter bait and pierce your lip through old scar tissue-- over, and over again.

You feel temporary like the seasons and phases of the moon-- a reoccurring dream that gets interrupted before you reach the end, a missing page of a map of somewhere you likely won't travel anyway.

And sometimes you question your worth because at this point you'd rather be human camouflage, than a wall flower. You'd rather not have to feel people appreciating you at all because you know they will only forget you when you're not around.

Though these thoughts of self loathing will haunt you, you are also resilient. Maybe someday love won't be-- black, or white fading to gray-- but instead your camouflage will turn to oranges and reds-- and just maybe, you'll find those who love you for being brave enough to show those colors.