i believe this was from sixteen as well. anything in italics is something I edited for clarity.

“I don’t love you.

The matter of fact, I don’t want to love you.

You see, love’s a word that’s been watered down throughout time.

There’s not a doubt about what I feel about you. And, like, the so many that’s been in love, love has been used, abused, neglected, lied to, cheated on, and sometimes even forgotten.

It used to be that love could pump life into the conversation, leaving one utterly speechless. Now, it’s used to fill breaks in conversation and pump reason into why you can’t leave someone who’s making you feel utterly useless.

See, I… I don’t want to L-O-V-E you, but I do want to take those letters and flip them backwards and use them to spell the beginning of the word evolve. I want us to grow into something indescribable by just one word.

I want to show you off to the world- a permanent connection. Perfectly passionate that I can sit you across of a jammed-packed arena and look at you once and everyone knows that we are together.

I don’t want to love you, but it’s you I’m trying to find.

I want to take every thought out on a date and say all the right things and at the end of the night, if I play my cards right, you just might invite me inside your mind.

I’m trying to take the “I” out of me. There’s no “I” in us. Let’s just do this for us. Let us breathe life into the word love again.

So, you see, I don’t want to love you.

I can’t love you.

This might seem not much to most, but you’re the greatest thing that’s happened to me. And if there’s anything I know; it’s how to recognize truth.”

xoxo,

jenna