I remember seeing Piper for the first time. I knew, from the very beginning, that I would always need her more than she would ever need me. Yet I didn't stop loving her because it was all that I knew, it was all that I felt. And I haven't stopped loving her merely because I realise that I can't.

I don't know how to explain how I felt that first time when her eyes met mine but like this:

Piper is like a triple chocolate cake after a big main. You know you can't, you know you shouldn't because you are already stuffed and full; more than content. But you just can't help yourself; the sweet richness of the moist cake smells too good to give up. This is how I can only begin to explain the love I feel (...felt?) for her. The sweet drowning sensation that you know should be unpleasant, but can't be described as so, is enough for you to want to stop indulging yourself. And you feel it, in the pit of your stomach but you don't stop. You can't stop.

The first time my eyes met Piper's, something inside of me was opened, popped, broken, fixed, solved. It was like the rapid pops of popcorn inside the microwave, it was like an erupting volcano, it was like the fireworks on New Year's Day, Independence Day and Guy Fawks Day combined.

She evoked feelings that I never thought I was capable of in the parts of me I didn't even know I had. And this is how I manage to love her, even now, when all I want to do is hate her. I was so sold by her that all I wanted was for her to whisper in my ears until I started drowning in her words.

And the first time I touched Piper? Well, crank the intensity up by a million and you're still not there.

This is a small insight into this love destroying my insides. It's like drowning... except not at all. Drowning suggests a sinister force involved where someone is holding you under the water. Loving Piper isn't like that; no one is forcing me to love her. I love her so much I willingly drown in it.

Think of it like this:

Loving Piper is like breathing. Breathing is love. There is a fire in my heart, in my soul - which started in her, within her. Bright and beautiful it burns in the hearth of me, and from the tips of the tongues of these flames is the smoke that is my soul. So really, you see, my soul does not belong to me. My soul originates in Piper.

Once upon a time, Piper inhaled this smoke. She felt my soul in her lungs and more importantly, the darkest depths of her. Once upon a time, she breathed me in; she breathed toxic in as I willingly breathed my poison: her.

And knowing that we were destructive, still I couldn't get enough of the sweet bitter feeling, the hazy love inside my lungs that call themselves Piper. Still, I couldn't get enough of a substance tainted by Piper, made by me.

But the difference is, Piper let go. Exhaled. She lost it, and no matter how hard she gasped back in, she never could exhale the same breath, the same love. One day, when she finds her strength, I know she will find this missing breath. I know it. I feel it in my bones.

But until then, I will love her as long as I inhale and girl, I will die before I exhale.

I don't know what happened or how it happened. Did I come find Nicky? Did she come find me? Did we just bump into each other? Either way, the only thing I can be sure of was that it was just like we had the same idea planted in our heads.

It's such a blur. Our hands were roaming all the places there was to roam, that neither of us could tell whose hand belonged to who. From anyone else's perspective, it would be said that we looked passionate.

But from the inside, we were sloppy. Clumsy.

Nonetheless it was intense.

The sweet climax of it all had been tainted by the bitterness inside of me. It was there don't get me wrong, but I couldn't feel anything but Nicky. It was Nicky, Nicky, Nicky and not Piper. There was even a moment I was so lost in the walls of my own mind that I nearly groaned Piper's name in vain. The bitterness growing foul inside of me is seeping out of me; it scares me.

There was nothing there. Unlike the fire Piper ignited in my heart, Nicky ignited nothing in me but numbness. There was no fireworks, or volcanoes, there wasn't even a hint of passion. Our movements were forced. Each drag of a finger across any skin was an attempt at easing our pains out of our own bodies. We were each others pain killers.

We were monsters. Selfishly ravishing each other for no-one's benefits but our own, we both saw that our hearts lay elsewhere.

Suddenly we stop. "Piper," she whispers with bitterness in her voice. "Can you feel that?" she asks.

"No." I say.

"Me neither." She sighs, fear creeping into every tone in her voice. I think she is scared. I think she is scared that she will never move on. That she will always love Morello. I only know this because I feel it too.

Instinctively, as I would with Piper, I reach for her hands and place them into mine, lightly grazing, spreading nothing but numbness over both our skins. Her hands feel wrong, they feel heavy in my hands, as if weighed down and exaggerated by the fact that they do not belong to Piper. I can feel every callous in them, and every line and flaw that does not meet with Piper's. I wait until she feels right ...but she doesn't.

I wait and I wait some more, but as she lies beside me, a little too warm to be Piper, I realise she will never turn into who I want. As I listen to her light breathing, as she sleeps beside me, I realise that I could not love her like I love Piper. So I let her go. I drop her hand and proceeded to close my eyes, hoping to get some peace in unconsciousness.

I am content with Nicky. She makes it seem real with the absence of Piper. I don't feel so alone when she's around, it's like she understands. Nicky's alright. Nicky will do.

It is today that I accept I will not move on. I will not let go because my soul has latched itself on to Piper: and what the soul wants, the soul will always want. I am okay with this because I feel as though I was born merely to know Piper. And I knew her. I know her, and even perhaps, better than she will ever let anyone know her and I am happy with that.

I understand that while she is my soul mate, I am - perhaps - not hers. And it's okay. It's okay because the love and pain I feel in the crests of my body because of her, makes me who I am. More importantly, this part of her she has left behind with me will stay alive regardless of her presence or not, and while I may always miss the part of me she has taken with her, it's better with her. She makes me better.

Yet at the same time, she is poison that I would gladly take over and over again.

I wanted to post this before New Year as a kind of thank you for all that you guys have done for me. You don't know what your feedback really means to me! Please tell me what you think, thank you all so much and Happy New Year, I guess!