selfish people

"i will tell you about selfish people.
even when they know
they will hurt you
they walk into your life to taste you
because you are the type of being they don't want to miss out on.
you are too much shine to be felt.
so when they have gotten a good look at everything you have to offer.
when they have taken your skin
your hair
and your secrets with them.
that is when the cowardice sets in.
that is when the person you thought they were is replaced by the sad reality of what they are.
that is when they lose every fighting bone in their body and leave after saying
you will find better than me.
you will stand there naked with half of them still hidden somewhere inside you and sob.
asking them why they did it.
why they forced you to love them when they had no intention of loving you back and they'll say
something along the lines of i just had to try, i had to give it a chance, it was you after all. 
but that isn't romantic. it isn't sweet. the idea that they were so engulfed by your existence they had to risk breaking it for the sake of knowing they weren't the one missing out.
your existence meant that little next to their curiosity of you.
that is the thing about selfish people.
they gamble entire beings. entire souls to please their own.
one second they are holding you like the world and
the next they have belittled you to a mere picture,
a moment,
something of the past.
one second, they swallow you up and whisper they want to spend the rest of their life with you
but the moment they sense fear, they are already halfway out the door.
without having the nerve to let you go with grace, as if the human heart means little to them.
and after all this. after all of the taking. the nerve.
isn't it sad and funny how people have more guts these days to undress you with their fingers than they do to pick up the phone and call.
apologize. for the loss.
and this is how you lose her."

Poem by Rupi Kaur