IStillDon'tLoveYou..

At the time it seemed absurd, and I thought I just misheard when she told me that she loved me. Then I had to fight the urge, to repeat the same words that I knew she was expecting from me. So I mustered up the nerve, gave her the truth that she deserved and so I told her I don’t love you. But it’s not that I don’t love you, not that I can’t love you, it’s more of the fact that I don’t want to.

But this isn’t an apology, more like a request to be an anomaly. To take “love” and define it on our own terms. ‘Cos currently, I know there’s something wrong with me when I can write a definition like it’s homework. At this rate, it’s closer to make believe. But I’d turn Christopher Reeves, wear my heart on my sleeve, like Toronto players and a maple leaf. A cliché definition is all we’re really left with and I hate it. ‘Cos you alone make me feel like…some word that hasn’t even been invented yet…I’m infloveuated.

Because making up a word is my only option. ‘Cos love is now casual, thrown around with no need to be factual, and destroyed its original intent like antitoxin. So going by those standards, I bear my gold standard and say that I still can’t love you. But I would exchange eloquent banter, until I get shot down like Jordan Manners and I regret never having said I loved you…But the word is already dead to me. Though I’d repeat it for the sake of having more time with you, to convince you even just in passing through, that to me you’re beyond heavenly. Though I still can’t love you.

See, those who have ‘loved’ and have ‘been loved’ have already been through enough…They’ve been misused, mistreated, misunderstood, abused and ignored and dragged through the rough…patches of relationships. Through the rocky roads and nights spent in the solace of cookies and cream courtesy of Oreos and a broken heart. Crying with a runny nose, left only with tissues and tears when the relationship falls apart. So that’s why I just can’t love you…

But I must admit, you’re hard to quit ‘cos you’re the best thing that’s happened to me, since the day that I discovered poetry. Tryna catch signs, dodging landmines, forgetting there was a time when you didn’t come first for me. But you’re closer to my life line, try to cut mine…your scissors break like in Hercules. I don’t want to be your lover…I want to be more like the best of friends. ‘Cos in relationships, all it takes is one mistake for the best to end. And the words “I love you” won’t be enough for these two hearts and the rest to mend. And as your bestest friend, I’ll hold your heart next to mine in a chest with the best defense. But secretly, I just want to have a future with you. Regardless of the relationship we’d share for the years to come, now I’m seeming dumb, ‘cos I was the one there for you when you were back on the market in a game of one, that no one’s won.

So forget labeling affection, it only leads in misdirection, so trust that I’d avoid saying that line at all. Even with appropriate exclamation, it’s all in the interpretation of those 3 words that defines it all. I. Love. You.
3 words that only matter as much as it does to those involved. And trust me when I say it…‘cos it means I’d catch you every time you fall, answer the phone every time you call and share a personal moment with you from across the hall. But that doesn’t mean everyone else feels the same, yet I’d risk the potential pain, for all the potential gain, even when our backs are against the wall.

If only I could read your mind…I would ask if you were willing to help me redesign the term. See I don’t love you. I…can’t love you. And I don’t want to. You see…I’m already infloveuated.