Untitled

You asked for it

I don't want to say anything. Why? Because you'll react in one of two ways: You'll either get mad and stop talking to me, or worse, you'll disregard what I'm saying completely and tell me I still don't understand. Which, let me tell you, really makes me mad. Because I have heard that over and over, and all other times than this one I have understood why it was being said; because they had no choice but to assume that I wouldn't understand, because I had not let them see enough of me to know that in fact I would. But you? I've shown you enough to think that maybe you would see, enough that I had some sort of hope that you would see that I, in fact, was not some emotionless black hole incapable of understanding. But you don't see it. And it makes me mad that it's like wasted effort, like I struggled so hard to paint the most honest picture of myself only to realise you're blind. You think that it's some explanation? " I'm heartbroken,you wouldn't understand." Because I don't mope, is that it? Because I never whine about love and heartbreak and how terrible and epic it all is. Because I don't tell you about times when I've cried or spent hours gaining some satisfaction from recounting the story of my "lost love." But what makes me maddest is how little you seem to esteem the thing you seem so broken by. You somehow believe that loving her equates to being with her; that somehow not being there for her the way you wanted was equal to having lost that love, like that was what matters. Popular thinking maybe, but it's wrong. Because that's selfish. Expecting that someone should be with you because you love them is selfish.  And selfishness, among many others is one of the antonyms of love. You think I don't understand because you think I never loved anyone I couldn't be with. I did. I do. But unlike you I believe that loving that person in itself is enough; that it isn't a means to an end, but an end in itself. Because I see love for what it is: the privilege of being responsible for that person. I'm lucky to love him not because he loves me back, or because of anything he feels or does for me, but simply because it is such an amazing, rare thing to love another human being. A pure, holy thing; the closest to heaven on earth. And so then it could never break me, because it doesn't matter what happens, I have decided to love him. You feel this complex, emotional roller coaster, and just when you begin to not you hurl yourself back in, convinced that your love somehow will get you want you want, that "love conquers all". It does. All including you, and all you want. It is complete in itself. So you tell me I don't know what it's like, but really you don't know what you're saying, because those feelings, while they might be the precursor to love, as it was with me, they are not love. So either suck it up or find another name to call your romantic misadventure because I refuse to let you insult love by comparing what you're feeling to it. It's much too important to me.

Story By: Maame Yaa Acheampong ( @Sarcasm_Hands)