“How can you possibly write about love when you have never been in love?”  

I wish I had answered you a little differently back then. Darling, you split me open and forced me to write again when I thought I could write no more. I had once been the great city of Troy with my indestructible walls… until you came. But this time it didn’t take a war to let the wooden horse into the heart of the city. You walked right into my heart and owned it. Your essence was flowing through my blood and rushing out as ink. Well, you see, I used to believe one couldn’t possibly fall in love until they learn how to love themselves. But that’s rubbish. I have never loved myself; I try to crawl out of my body every night, with persistent claustrophobia. My body has never felt like home. I shed my skin every day and grow another, in hopes that I would wake up with the battle scars gone. I have never loved myself. But you, God… I loved you so much I forgot what hating myself felt like. I’ve heard about her, Helen of Troy: the face that launched a fleet of a thousand ships across the ocean. It’s mind-blowing how a single face can start a war. But you never felt like war, you were my haven. It’s how your name felt safe between my lips that made me say it over and over again: it turned into a prayer. I whispered you into my pillow, a hymn I sang all day and every night. Heaven seemed to be the loneliest place without you. Don’t you dare claim I have never been in love, I was born in love with you.