notes: lolwut, i seriously have no idea where this came from. i was trying some poetry (on my dA, if you're interested), and this came to life. so yeah. (would you believe me if i said i was a happy person?) there are two things i'd like you guys to check out: my page, and my forum. much thanks!

dedication: SweetAndButtery. i really hope this meets your expectations.

why are you so beautiful.

Sakura first saw him on December 15th, leaning against a brick wall in the alleyway she always thought was frightening. He had a green glass bottle between his fingers, elegant but anything but, and it felt like if she did so much as touch him—

He'd break.

And when he looked at her, his eyes reminded her of corruption—

—and his lips of heartbreak—

—and his almost-too-broken smile of wisps of smoke that twirled and danced in the air before disappearing.

And she felt that if she looked at him long enough, if she concentrated on this painfully beautiful image too much…

He'd disappear, too.

you look all too breakable.

Sasuke first saw her much too long ago for him to actually remember. All he did was drink and drink and drink—to forget and remember and despair and drink again—and he eventually forgot everything as his life became a cycle that was more sinister than even death.

Her eyes reminded him of too-happy-to-be-true times, of grassy hills and falling to the ground and scraping his knee before realizing his shoelaces were undone again. Her smile looked too real, and she, she, she—

She gave him a reason to remember.

She was the only light in his life, so why, why was it that…

He wanted to make her just like him?

i can't breathe when you're around.

His lips reminded her of the aftertaste she got after licking an envelope shut. His touches were like static, and his voice like brown sugar. She shivered when he whispered her name—"Sakura, Sakura, Sakura"—like walking outside on a crisp winter morning.

She made him a cup of coffee each morning, but he never drank it. She asked him why.

"I don't want to stay awake."

And she felt a part of herself break when his chapped lips parted to say such aching words, and she wanted to rush up to him and wrap her arms around his too-thin body—this boy who drank poison and reeked of disappearing smoke—

—and she held on tighter and tighter, because for some reason, she thought that if she held on hard enough, he wouldn't slip from her grasp—

"If I always have to wake up to you, I never want to drink coffee again."

i think i love you.

She was his sun.

And when was the last time he had seen the sun?

She'd make a fuss early in the morning and pull him from his blissfully bittersweet dreams of starving stray cats and dirty pennies and nickels and dimes on the ground that no one really cared about—

—pulled him from every single dream that was better than this—

And remind him that he had another day of hell to survive.

She'd make him a cup of coffee, and he'd wonder when he stopped drinking coffee and started drinking beer. But then he'd remember, and the ache at the back of his head would get stronger, and, and, and—

And he just wanted to put his fucking sun out.

i think i'm in love with you.

She wanted so desperately to fix this broken boy. She didn't know the meaning of impossible. There were a lot of things that she didn't know.

While she spoke to him about her favorite flavor of ice cream and the book she had just finished the other day, he was probably thinking about which bar to go to that night and whose name should be the stinging acid in his throat that night, reminding him of his disgusting past and his despicable face and too-weak hands that couldn't do anything that night.

She wanted to grab the blade from his hands as he made breathtaking patterns on his marred skin; telltale stories overlapping each other until nothing was even coherent anymore. She wanted to fill his beer bottle with coffee and make him drink it.

She wanted his lips to taste sweet just like chocolate ice cream, his touches to feel like love and his voice to sound like beautiful music, played delicately by the violin.

But all she got was a sick aftertaste, static electricity, and brown sugar that scraped its way down her throat.

your porcelain skin is too perfect.

When she said his name, her voice was something akin to pretty poetry.

"Why are you trying so hard?"

And when she smiled at him, she looked a little jaded, like she was unraveling at the seams, and he thought that she was breaking too slowly, and he should just rip her apart.

Because being ripped apart wasn't as painful as trying to fix him.

He couldn't comprehend her words. Just like the poetry that he could never understand.

"Because I want to see the real you."

When he stared at her, it felt like he was falling to the ground and scraping his knees, only coming to realize that his shoelaces were undone, but he didn't know how to tie them back together.

"I want to see Sasuke."

i can't look you in the eye.

If she did the things he did, would she understand his pain?

The beer tasted worse than his lips, and she wanted nothing more than to disappear when she inhaled the first breath of that cigarette—but she only felt the toxin running in her veins and she wondered where her chocolate ice cream and love and happily ever after went—

And where was the hope that she used to have?

Where was the perfectly brewed coffee that she made every morning for him—just for him?

Gone, like the smoke of her cigarette, already put out.

you're too bright.

Her tears were like diamonds, cutting her cheeks until they weren't diamonds anymore at all—more like rubies. And he prided himself in making something so beautifully broken, like a china doll that used to shine and sparkle, left alone for decades in a house on a hill that had long since been deserted.

And he was watching her as she shook from her sobs, scowling when he saw that her heart was too big for her small ribcage, her liver like a pile of shit when consuming alcohol, her lungs like paper that caught fire from a mere cigarette—

Where did his sun go?

please make this stop.

Falling in love with him was something similar to drowning.

The wind was soft but cold, and she felt the need to hold onto him, because if she didn't, he'd just blow away. He was like a single blade of grass—a single blade of dead grass—picked from the ground and carelessly tossed aside.

Here, she should've felt cleansed. She should've felt new, she should've felt undefeatable, she should've felt even a little in love—

But all she felt was tired and dirty and eleven stories up.

He ripped himself from her grasp and took a step back, his eyes reminding her of skulls and dirt and all of those who were six feet under.

Falling in love with Sasuke was just like drowning.

She couldn't breathe.

please.

"You wanted to see me? The real me?" Each step backwards was like another breath of fresh air, cleaning his black lungs and taunting mouth that spat out words of corruption.

Finally, his sun was put out.

"This is me."

please.

Just like a wisp of smoke that twirled and danced in the air before disappearing—

He slipped right through her fingers.

p.s. this was so painful to write.