I was cursed before I even understood what love meant.
A demon marked me when I was only a child,
whispering that no heart would ever belong to me
without being destroyed by it.
And he was right.
Anyone who tried to love me
slowly lost themselves.
Some became obsessed,
watching me as if I were the last light left in the world.
Some turned cruel with desperation,
trying to possess what they could never truly keep.
Others simply died,
suddenly and without reason,
as though death itself grew jealous of their feelings for me.
But I never hurt them.
Never.
I loved gently.
I cared too deeply.
I gave warmth to broken souls
even while my own hands trembled with fear.
Still, the curse remained.
The demon never touched me again,
yet I always feel him nearby —
in mirrors,
in dark hallways,
in the silence after someone says they love me.
As if he is waiting.
Watching.
Claiming what he believes is his forever.
So I learned to walk away before love could bloom.
To disappear before attachment became obsession.
To smile from a distance
so no one else would lose their mind,
their life,
or their soul because of me.
I was never meant to be loved.
Only haunted.
And yet, even curses begin to crack
when met with something softer than fear.
There are nights when the demon feels quieter—
not gone,
but less certain of me.
Like he is learning that I do not belong only to him,
or to the stories I was told about myself.
I start to notice small rebellions in my own existence:
a laugh that doesn’t feel borrowed from sorrow,
a moment of peace that doesn’t demand a price,
a love that arrives without asking to consume me.
And I wonder…
what if it was never a curse at all?
What if it was only the echo
of every wound I was taught to call destiny?
The ones who loved me did not all vanish into darkness
some simply could not hold their own shadows
while standing beside mine.
Some broke because they were already breaking.
Some left because they never knew how to stay.
Some confused longing with possession,
and called it love until it turned on them.
But that was never my hand on their fate.
Never my breath shaping their endings.
Only fear made it feel like prophecy.
Still, I carry the habit of leaving first
like a prayer whispered backwards,
like trying to outrun something
that may never have been chasing me.
And sometimes, in the reflection of glass,
I no longer see a mark…
only a person learning
how to exist without turning herself into a warning.
The demon, if he was ever real,
no longer speaks my name so loudly.
Or maybe I am finally learning
not to answer.
@newgirldark