If You Ask Me If I Love You, I’ll Lie

When you ask me what I want to do, I will tell you whatever you like. A movie sounds great and maybe we can even grab food after. I haven’t seen your mom in a while so it would be nice to drop by and say ‘hi.’ I won’t tell you that I want to watch the movie at your place or mine instead of at the theatres. I won’t tell you that I want your arms around me pulling me close to the point where I have no room to move, no chance of escaping, because there is nowhere else I would rather be. How I want to rest my head on your shoulders like it’s so natural that it is a wonder it’s not something we have always been doing. I’ll smile and try not think of our dinner as a date, I’ll look at you from the opposite side of the booth and won’t tell you how I would do anything to sit right next to you.

When you ask me about her, I’ll grab your hand and tell you to go for it. I’ll tell you to fight for her because love is worth fighting for. I won’t tell you to forget about her, that you’re wasting your time with someone who is playing you, stringing you along and saving you for last. I won’t tell you to leave her and pick me because I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want you, why anyone couldn’t love you and why anyone would rather try chasing someone else when they already have you. I won’t tell you that you need to cut her off even if it means your heart will break for good. I will tell you that love is a battle. But I won’t tell you that she’s not worth the fight.

When you ask me if I like anyone, I’ll look down and shake my head. I will tell you that I’m not looking for love, that I am spending this time finding myself. I have so much going for me and how happy I am because I have no reason to be sad. I won’t tell you that somewhere along the road, I began developing feelings for you. That my love for you as a friend turned into something more, that it’s something I can’t control, that it just happened and I don’t know when or how, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me. The whole world was suddenly brought to life as if my body just remembered that I’m alive. I won’t tell you that the reason I haven’t found anyone is because I don’t want to give my heart away, I want to keep it open and available for you.

When you ask me if there’s anything you can do about my latest boy troubles, I will smile and say ‘no.’ I will say that everything happens for a reason and life moves on. I appreciate you trying to help and trying to be there for me, but nothing you say or do will ever bring him back. I won’t tell you that there is, in fact, so much you can do and that you are the only one who can fix me. You’re the one who really holds my heart, who has always understood me better than him and the only one who seems can truly love me. I won’t tell you that there is everything you can do but instead, I will keep on telling you that there is nothing.

When you ask me what’s on my mind, I will answer ‘just the usual.’ I will tell you about my day, about the new plans I made for the future and I will excitedly tell you all the boring bits because I know you will laugh anyway. I won’t tell you that I spend my whole day and every night thinking of you, that you’re the only thought that exists in my head. When I wake up your face is the first thing I picture and how that is the reason I am able to survive through another day. If I see something funny, I instantly think of you because it’s a joke only you will understand, only you will appreciate and why I don’t want my mind thinking of anything but you.

When you ask me if I am okay, I will always tell you that I’m fine. It’s been a rough day and I don’t feel like talking. I need to clear my head and right now, I need to be away from everyone. I won’t tell you that I go to bed every night crying, so much that sometimes I forget how it felt to smile, sometimes I miss how things were before they became so difficult and wonder why I used to believe that love makes everything easy. I feel like someone left a dagger in my heart that keeps on digging and twisting until every piece is wrecked, unrecognizable, that not even magic can heal them or make my heart beat again. I won’t admit I have been walking everywhere with my head down because I don’t have the strength to look up and face a world in which ‘we’ will never exist.

I will tell you over and over again that I want to be alone.

What I won’t tell you is not to listen to me, because what I really want, is to be with you.