Stay with me

Don't hate me when I beg you to stay
because I want you, yes,
I want your heat and your humor
and those indulgent smiles,
and the warm safe scent of you
and your heart thudding steadily under my ear
and your hand in mine, your hair twisting through my fingers
and that low soft chuckle I hear only late at night, only when we're alone
and yes, I want you, I do.

But more than you, I want not to be alone.
I want not to hear that aching acid loneliness that eats away at my soul,
at my heart,
telling me that no one [no one!] cares
and no one wants to see what I have become
or what I may someday be.

So I use you.
I use you to keep away the demons that haunt me when you leave
the demons that hound me, drip poison in my ears;
grotesque, obscenely twisted perversions
of my [our? the universal?] desire for love.

But when I'm with you,
and your stability chases away the accusations
and recriminations
that echo inside my head,
leaving me almost whole again,
able to laugh and dance and play...
When I'm with you, the world is nearly bearable again.

Don't despise me,
[please]
for loving your presence perhaps more than I will ever love you.