This, is how I love you. (Spoken word)

It is Sunday, and we sit down for our weekly coffee date in our usual spot- the far right corner of the cafe by the window- where we talk and laugh and reminisce for hours about work and our lives and passers by and each other. This has been our tradition for the last year, and you can’t help but feel fascinated that I never run short of stories you’ve never heard and facts you never knew and facial expressions you’ve never seen. 

I pretend not to notice the glint in your eyes as you listen to me, devouring my words as though they were hot chocolate, breaking off bite-size chunks like a sweet treat you want to save for later and soaking up my laughter before it has chance to spill and cause conversation with anyone but you. You paid for these, for this, for me, and you do not wish to share a single drop of what, or whose time, you have purchased. 

It is dark when we finally decide it’s time to leave our half-drank coffee- which has run cold thanks to our endless enjoyment of one another’s company- and you rise to walk me to my car. You remain one stride behind my small steps so that you might protect me from whatever may lurk in the background, unaware that it is I who hopes to protect you. You open up my door, hold me- tight, as if you know that this goodbye is different- and then bow as you say “M’lady.” in your (awful) butlers voice; a stunt that never fails to make me laugh. Except this time I don’t. This time, I sigh. Involuntarily you exhale deeply too, and let your head drop under the weight of your anticipation of what I am about to say...

 “This is to be our last Sunday.” 

I’m not quite sure why it sounds so cut throat, but I can almost see you, taste you, bleeding when you lift your head back up to meet my gaze. You give a little laugh, another deep sigh, and this time it is my head which hangs like a wilting flower as I wait for your reply. 

“Why don’t you love me? Why won’t you let yourself love me?” 

I give you my final facial expression, a look that says

“Some things are better left unsaid.” 

You hate that, despite its meaning, you still find this one just as fascinating as the rest. I wave my fingers at you gently as I pull out, and you watch numbly as I disappear down the road, saddened to know that next Sunday I shall not return. I drive, saddened to know that this parting will play over and over in your memory for what will feel like a lifetime and you’ll think it was somehow your fault.

The truth is, my love, some people are hurricanes. Tsunamis. Torrential storms. I am one of those people. My love comes in waves, devastating waves, the kind of waves that will wipe out the small village that is your heart. Me and my whirlwind emotions will chew you up and spit you out until you are so dizzy you are unsure where your love ends and my hatred begins. My moods, which change like seasons by the second, will leave you famished. The hope you have planted in me I have already destroyed, imagine what a person like me would do to the fruitful garden that is your soul. My heart is cold, my mind is fogged and my soul is lost in an abyss of despair. You cannot sing to, or water or re-plant a flower that has already died and expect it to flourish. There is no fertile soil here, the seeds you try so desperately to plant will not grow. 

Do not ask why I don’t love you- know that leaving is the hardest choice I’ve made- but you are all that is bright and warm and beautiful, and I am all that is dark and cold and treacherous; the darkest corners of the world which your light can’t reach. You are chirping birds, light breeze and the promise of tomorrow. I am the today that people hope is the last.

So no, I do not love you. I will not let myself love you. 

And this, is how I love you.