It used to be a lot easier. Tossing around words for feelings used to be fun, exhilarating almost, as I meticulously wiggled my heart in side by side with another's. And when I heard those words back, when I felt that magnetism extending from your heart, no matter if it was true or not, it was fun.
A lot has changed since then, I have developed the aching ability to hold my tongue when I know that the words I say do not match my feelings. The words have since crept up from my heart only to be trapped behind my lips by my brain. I promise you though that I am not doing this for you, I am not hesitating or being dishonest, and I am not shielding my emotions to protect your vulnerabilities. I am a different girl these days. I am a girl who knows love, and concurrently, knows loss. When the person you love the most in this entire universe is lost, you stop seeing emotions as fun, you stop seeing love as a game. You learn how to survive on the most basic human feelings, sometimes not even able to differentiate between them. Love and loss become so intertwined that advancing any type of relationship becomes almost traumatizing because staring you right in the face is the inevitable potential for loss. And so this is why, when my heart pumps a little faster and my arteries bring the words "I love you" to my lips, this is why my brain intercedes, and this is why I wish yours had done the same...
The truth is, you don't know love, you are a child who's love has never been put to test, and fortunately, you don't know loss, at least, not the type of loss that I know. So the next time you think it, the next time you let the "hype of the moment" and the sensation of endorphins take over your consciousness, stop and think, stop and remember, for some people, those words are more than hypes, more than space fillers, more than pick up lines. For some people, "I love you" is a time capsule, full of deep and honest emotion, and one that only in the rarest and most truly intimate circumstances, gets opened.
"Don't call me baby, unless you mean it.
Don't tell me you need me, if you don't believe it..."
@EdSheeran