You knew it wouldn't work as soon as he stood before you, words practically cloying in contrast to your stony silence. You knew that you were simply too different to be functional. But you almost enjoy how his words, lithe and sticky syrup syllables, drip into your own jagged verbal canyons; turning your monstrosities into maidens. And you know for a fact that you enjoy his slender tanned skin, almost revel in feather light touches, as gentle and subtle as fairy footprints on woodland earth. Yet he is overwhelming; edible napalm spilling through your spindly fingers. His hooded lids twist your stomach uncomfortably and it’s almost horrifying, too much, he is too much. You are awkward words and a stinted tongue tripping over feelings you cannot comprehend. When you part you are left clawing at the image of his caramel form, burning and crystallising at the back of your eyeballs, gasping for breath in candied air. He is far too much sugar to dissolve in the stagnant coffee that is your personality. You often think of stopping it all but then, through saccharine murmurs … Duizhang, is everything okay? 

 

Instead, you your wounds in darkened rooms; isolation is the best remedy for his sugar burns.