I Wish I Could Stop Loving You

By

From the ends of your hair down the tips of your toes, you are beautiful. I can’t stop loving you, but I wish I could.

Your eyes—those expressive eyes—I wish I could stop loving them. I wish I could stop looking at the way they sparkle every time you talk about something you are so passionate about. I wish I could stop marveling at how they get a bit bigger when you are shocked or amazed, at how they can form into two thin lines when you smile and even at how they can lose their shine when you’re feeling down. Those eyes that can appreciate the beauty of even the simplest things in this world—I wish I could stop loving them because they don’t look at me the way mine do at you.

Your smile—that sweet, sweet, contagious smile of yours—it can turn dull into vibrancy, and gray into the colors of the rainbow. How I wish I could stop loving it—the corners of your lips lifting up to emphasize your cheeks. I wish I could stop loving your smile because it isn’t for me, nor am I the reason it appears.

I could listen to you talking all day and I won’t mind. Your voice—to my ears, it can weave words into poems and notes into soft melodies.

I will hear its gentleness in the middle of roaring thunders. It would be the harmonious music my ears will always find. But I wish I could stop loving it. Your voice, it will not whisper to me the sweetest of words, nor will it hum me a song.

If I feel your hands, will they be soft or will they be callous? No matter which, I love them. They are pieces of you that made your story. They are the hands which clutched the milk bottle when you were young; the hands which strived to write the letters of the alphabet; and the ones which petted your first dog. Every line in your palm witnesses how you live every day. But I wish I could stop loving them for they won’t hold me. They won’t wipe the tears I’d shed after sad movies, nor would they tuck my hair behind my ears.

That wonderful heart of yours, I wish I could stop loving it. I wish I could stop admiring how compassionate it is to other people, or how loving it is to your family. I wish I could stop loving even its brokenness. I wish I could stop loving it because it does not beat for me the way mine does for you. It does not skip a rhythm the way mine does when you are near.

I wish I could stop loving every inch of you, even the scars which have marked you. I wish the butterflies inside me would stop fluttering when I see you.

I wish I could stop thinking about you—about how it would be like to be locked inside your arms; about how it would feel like to hear you tell me you love me. I wish I could stop dreaming about you and me—about you loving me.

I wish I could stop loving you so that I could free myself of the pain of you not being able to love me back.

My love, I wish I could stop. Because as much as I find you wonderful in all angles, you are also the one who is shattering me into pieces.