If I Were You...

If I were you I would walk away.

If I knew the truth despite all the lies, I'd walk away with my pride intact.

If I looked at him and knew that the words he spawned like liquid sugar have always been meant for someone else, I'd give up the charade and exit the stage instead of fighting for a show to go on. A show where you two but spin lines to each other that mean nothing at all. Lines that you whisper to him so he'd have to answer you with more lines you want so badly to hear. He finds himself saying them to try and comfort you. To try and erase his own guilt. Lines all leading men say to fulfill the role of leading men. The last act in Les Miserables. Marius whispers sweet nothings to Eponine's ear so that the last thing she hears before she dies is his voice. And he won't feel so guilty for not loving her back.

Why insist on something to be real when deep inside there is an ever constant awareness that someone else will be in his arms the moment the curtains fall? Why insist on fulfilling a someone elses' role on a show when God has made you your own life, where you are the leading woman? Where your shoes are your own? Where the lines are from the heart? Where the heartache is all worth it? Where everything remains as they are even after the curtains have fallen?

If I were you, I shall not bother him anymore. I'd let him live the life he chose without burdening him with guilt at the pains he's caused. I won't say, "I'm not pressuring him", but keep on texting or messaging, sending seemingly innocent e-mails that are actually desperate attempts at making sure he knows that you are there, still. That you are suffering. That you love him, still.

By doing these things, you do not show him your love. You show him your suffering. And every time he sees your suffering, he suffers a little too. That every time he encounters a dose of true happiness, he feels guilty because he knows that every time he smiles for someone else, you get hurt. That every time he dreams a future with another, it is thwarted by the knowledge that his happiness is at the cost of yours. That despite all his attempts at avoiding you, you're still hoping against hope that he would realize he is truly in love with you and not her.

Perhaps in the dreams that your heart holds, this is true... but it is no longer when you wake. You know this because at the back of your mind, you can clearly remember the number of times he's denied you. The moments he's hid you from the people who matter to him. The long-long silences that are only broken when you send him something desperate and he is flooded by guilt and he is forced by his nagging conscience to at least ask how you are.

If I were you I'd walk away from this person you are becoming.

If I were you, I'd give him the love he deserves by not stealing him away from it. By not giving them reasons to fight. By allowing them to be happy. After all, despite all the justifications you keep telling yourself to hide the fact that it was you who was the first to hurt someone, you know in your heart that she has always been there. That it is her shoes you were trying to fill. That you know you could never fill them because you are an entirely different person.

You are not her and you don't need to be.

You don't need him so you can be your own person. You don't need anyone else to be happy with yourself.

If I were you I would realize that we are not the only people whose heart is broken by the storms of our own making. God has written a love story for all of us. Each with its own happy ending, the kind we all deserve.

If I were you I will pull out the seeds of bitterness from my heart and throw away the venom with which you garden it everyday. I'd lash at the growing vines of self-pity that entangle your heart until it could no longer breathe.

If I were you...

If I were you...

If I were you, I would set myself free...