Love Me Wholeheartedly, Or Not At All

Don’t date me unless you mean it.

Because I won’t fall for your smooth charm that you’ve used on many before me. I won’t be taken in with the breathtaking stories you spin to get my attention. I won’t be swept away by the captivating look in your eyes promising me more than you could ever deliver. I won’t give in to glamorous gestures and grand declarations of how much you need me when your actions don’t follow.

No, I’ve seen you through.

My heart may have convinced me that you loved me, but my mind is clear on what I have to do. I may wish that you text me as every painful minute passes by, I may stare at our old conversations and miss the way we used to be, and I may go to all our favorite spots and reminisce about everything I loved about you, but still I won’t yield.

My resolve is steely hard. My determination to get over you is undaunted. My pride tells me, I want you but I don’t need you.

Don’t fall for me unless you love me for me.

For like the birds soaring above the sky, I’m free and wild. You cannot seek to control my movement and change my mind. Like the autumn leaves that fall, you cannot stop me from slipping out of your life. Like the magnificent sun with its eternal shine, you cannot dim my light.

No, I may want to please you but my self-preservation is stronger.

That the love you promised isn’t really love at all. Love is caring and kind and what you show me isn’t that. You want to change and modify me into someone I’m not. You want me to obey your every command and listen to you without any return on your part. You want me to love you when you don’t.

And so I will break your heart before you break mine. I will leave you before I am left. I will write the ending to our chapter before you rip me out of yours.

Don’t love me unless you love me wholeheartedly.

I’m not okay with you texting me once in a while to ‘catch up’. I don’t believe the sweet nothings of how I meant everything to you when you treat me like I’m nothing. I don’t need your occasional visit to my life.

I don’t want your love if it’s not unconditional and true. I don’t want your presence in my life when I have to get used to your absence. I don’t want to love you if you don’t know whether you do.

Because despite what you show me, I know I deserve more than that. I deserve nothing less than a love given wholeheartedly.