Love. What a stupid word. What a stupid concept. I hate love.

Love is nothing and love is everything. Love can bring eternal bliss but is usually cut off by great pain and regret. Love is a vicious little monster waiting in the shadows to pounce on you and rip your heart out, tear up your insides and disembowel your brain of every sane thought; if you had any in the first place.

I hate love.

Love can suck the energy out of you, the will to live, to succeed, to dominate. If only the object of your love can survive and be happy, you are satisfied to fade into the back round, forgotten and shadowed in sorrow. But that doesn't matter; the one you love is content, and that's all that matters.

How stupid.

I hate love.

It swallowed me up with gaping jaws and razor teeth, not giving a damn if I cared about what happened to me. It didn't matter if I lived and kept my sanity, as long as its hunger was satisfied. I'm stupid for believing its twisted words.

Love can manipulate a man into a soulless shell, a mere drone filling out orders for its master. Love can wrench your very being from your body and slam your conscious into a whirlwind of different fears and angers and jealousies. Why would anyone put themselves through such a horrible ordeal, you ask?

Because late at night, or even in the middle of day, love will whisper tempting lies about happiness and joy into your ear; convince you that there's something worth saving, there's something worth fighting for. Something worth dying for.

Which is a total lie.

Because love is a lie.

I hate love.

I want everyone out there to be warned; love is a lie. A complete, shameless lie wrought from pain and misery to share its terrible fate with its victim. When you being to think that maybe that special person will be with you forever, slap yourself and wake up from that dream, because it'll never happen. Ever. It's all a façade, all a sham, all a cup of sweet tea poisoned with cyanide meant to deceive you and wrench you from safety. The only way anyone can leave this world unscathed is if they protect themselves from the very beginning, and to do that, you have to sever all ties that have bound you to that joke called love.

Don't make my mistake.

Don't wither like I did.

Don't love.

Why am I saying this? I think it should be completely obvious to you by now.

I hate love.
A/N: Don't you just love Vincent angst? Or is it Cloud angst? Or maybe Sephiroth angst? You decide.