He tells me I’m too innocent — that I’m naive. But the truth is that he’s jaded and beaten down. He doesn’t see in color anymore. He thinks people are watching him.

He says he’s not relationship material, that he doesn’t play well with others. He doesn’t play at all. But the truth is that I’m too quick to jump — into bed, into marriage, off a cliff — it doesn’t matter. Where he walks on eggshells, I stomp them into fine white powder, then snort it.

He is a builder. He builds walls, and high towers, cold and quiet and austere.

I am an artist. I carve the shape of my heart into my sleeve like a prison tattoo and color it with high expectations, then I shove it in your face before the ink is dry.

He thinks I should go to law school. I think he should marry me and run away with me to Tuscany.

When he gets close to me, my chaotic inferno melts some of his ice block edges. Sometimes he stays a while. But in the end I am always too much.

I am too much for most people. Most people are too much for him.