Stop it. Please, stop it.

You keep looking at me with those beautiful, sweet, innocent eyes of yours. I can't take it.

When you look at me that way, it's like you can see right through me, as if you can see all the stains on my soul. And it hurts, it hurts, because you shouldn't see those things. Your innocence is precious; please don't shatter it by knowing me.

I can see that you're trying to reach me again, despite all that's happened. You just don't seem to understand that I can't reach back just yet. I'm not ready; I don't know what I want.

But in my heart I know that I do know what I want. What I want is you, here next to me always. But I can never fulfill that dream. I cannot let your purity be forever soiled by my wrongdoings. I cannot allow my own darkness to swallow your light.

You are so close to me right now, so impossibly close. I could touch your hand if I dared, but I dare not. My touch will stain you, and I will not, cannot let that happen.

The light calls the darkness, and the darkness calls the light. Wherever there is light there will be darkness. But the two cannot do more than call each other. For the darkness to care for the light is unheard of; for the light to care for the dark is unthinkable. Light and darkness are an unimaginable union. They may not love each other, no matter how much they wish to do so.

This darkness wants more than anything to cast aside the rules. I want so badly to touch your hand, to do the forbidden. But I cannot do that, not while the past still haunts my every move. I am trapped by the rules- and trapped by my own self.

I have no idea when I'll finally be able to put the past behind me and stop blaming myself, but only when I can do that can I believe that my touch will not taint you. Only then can I allow myself to touch you, and only then can the rules change.

Until then, however, we are stuck as we are: you forever reaching out, I forever incapable of reaching back. I am the only one who can break us out of this deadlock.

So now I will begin to deal with the demons of my past. Slowly, one by one, they will stop haunting me. Then, finally, the barrier between us will disappear, and light and darkness will be joined together. But, until then, please...

Don't look at me that way.