Don't Call It Love

Almost from the moment we're born, we instinctively know what love is. A parent's approving smile, a hug when we're injured, a simple kiss on the forehead before we go to sleep at night.

It takes a monstrous act of will for someone to distort that for their own twisted purposes.

"Don't you know how much I love you?" he whispers, as he hurts me again. There was a time when I knew this wasn't love, but now I just try to feel nothing at all, while I silently pray for death, his or mine; it no longer matters which.