Please

Please, don’t ever take someone’s face in your hands and tell them,
“I love you.”
Don’t look them in the eye and say, “You matter to me.”

Not if you’re going to blow them off.
Not if you don’t have what it takes.
Not if you want to love them but can’t give what they need.
Not if you want to mean it but don’t, really.

Don’t say “More than my friend” then disappear.
Don’t talk about the friendships stories are made of, then… ?
Please don’t say everything someone is longing to hear then make them wonder what happened.
Even if it’s their problem and they overreacted, don’t make them wonder and wonder and wonder.
Please, please, really try, never to make someone question all the beginning and what may become of the end because they can no longer find you in the middle.
Don’t make someone spend days and weeks and months trying to let go, trying to forget, trying to be un-angry.

Not if you first let them think the love warranted such a response.

Don’t let someone fall for your heart and stumble around trying to find it again, while you wander far and long, shrouded in concealing mists.

Don’t gift them with the treasure of your heart, of your soul, of your secrets and your fears and the beauty that is flaming at the heart of all your fears…not if they must then be cut off, a stranger to your love as well as your defenses…

Please do not wound someone so deeply with your love that long later, they would not change that you took their face in your hands.