Tainted Castle

I did the unthinkable and let you inside my make-believe castle.  I showed you the walls made up of words, the characters that live in my head, the never-ending stories that hang like tapestries at every turn.
You made it beautiful.  You introduced colors to my black and white world and built new spaces in my head that I'd never dared to explore.

Then you left.
Everything is tainted now.
You tracked your footprint through all my thoughts and somehow, through my heart.  The words don't seem right anymore.  Not the ones I picked, no the ones you gave.  And I begin to wonder if they'll only ever be right with your presence.

I wish you had burned it to the ground.  Every inch of me and my many made-up lives.  I wish you had set fire to the paper walls and left me with a charred, empty mess rather than this.
Instead you made it better and added color and life and then you left me alone to deal with it all.  I thought I had found a collaborator.  I thought I'd found a like-mind.  A friend.

Now nothing comes out right and the pen in my hand is heavy and nothing feels the way it should.
I keep waiting for the numbness.  I keep waiting for the fire.  I keep waiting for the end of this maddening confusion.
But my chest still hurts.  And my words are still wrong.  And my fingers still shake.  And the tears still come.
And this make-believe castle I used to love so much is haunting me with the memory of your influence.