Hate to love you
Dear Enemy,
Hating you for months has strangely become my favorite pastime—
like a habit I never meant to keep,
you slip into my thoughts uninvited.
Do you remember our first and last date?
It wasn’t a date to you,
but to me, it was a dream I’d been too scared to want.
You ordered something so close to what I chose,
and sat beside me, watching me eat.
I swear my heart almost broke free from my chest.
Do you remember the times I despised your irritating self,
your shameless, narcissistic air—
and yet, the way you leaned close to whisper something,
how it brushed my ear and
sent butterflies scattering through my stomach?
Do you remember saving me from that vehicle—
while lying that you didn’t care?
Or when you called me overdressed,
but later, I heard you’d praised me when I wasn’t there?
Do you remember our arguments—
your voice sharp enough to draw tears I refused to let fall?
The times you called me dumb,
then took the trouble to explain things anyway.
Do you remember the flicker in your eyes
when I laughed with someone else—
how you masked it with warnings about who I should or shouldn’t trust?
Do you remember staring at me
when you thought I didn’t notice—
but every inch of me knew?
Do you remember that bus ride,
when our faces came so close we almost kissed?
I turned away first,
because if I hadn’t,
I might have fallen into something I’d never be able to escape.
Loving you was never in the plan—
but it happened in every stolen glance,
in every unspoken moment,
in every contradiction that was you.
Now, all I have are these memories,
buried deep, where no one will ever find them.
Perhaps in another universe, loving you won’t feel like a curse.
