I think I have this bitter-sweet relationship with the term ‘I love you’.
To me, ‘I love you’ coming from a friend who pretends to have my back, but instead goes around to bitch about me, it sounds like “I’ll be your friend as long as I gain something out of this friendship. And then when I am done, my knife will pierce your heart so fiercely that you’ll have a blinding headache.”
Or when that one relative who bestows me with their annual visit follows up their greeting with, ” Oh damn! You have changed so much. Love the new look on you.” it sounds like a judgment sugarcoated in venomous words because you don’t look, or act, or follow the same morals that they do.
But I also cannot stop thinking about the most beautiful ways ‘I love you’ is said. Like when my dad randomly come into my room on a Tuesday evening to announce that he loves me because I was smiling an inch lesser in the dining room. And I know as he tells me he loves me, he wants to add that, ” It’s okay. We all have bad days. But just in case you need me, I am here.”
And you know that one friend who always stops when you tie your shoelaces that comes undone 3847 times a day? When they stop for you and tell you to hurry up I hope you know it secretly says, “I love you. And I promise that I’ll never leave you behind. I’d rather stand here in scorching heat and watch my skin burn if it means that I get to walk with you.”
There are so many more beautiful ways in which the world shouts that they are in love with you but so many shrewd and cunning ways in which the world shouts out it might just never love you.
