Why won’t you love me?

I love you. I am right here. I am doing everything I can to get you to notice me. I friended you online. I read your blog. I took pictures of you when you weren’t looking. Those pictures mean the world to me.

Why won’t you love me? I sent flowers to you at work. I know you got them. I’m right here in the next cube. I heard you talking to your friends. I know you were excited. I know you were dying to know who sent you those flowers. I know you kept them on your desk long after they started to fade. I saw you putting aspirin in the water to make them last longer. I know they meant something to you. So why won’t you love me?

What would it take for you to tear down that wall around your heart and let me in?

I hacked into your email to find out more about you. When you love me, I will teach how to create a stronger password. When you love me, I will tell you that Roberta from HR is not as good of a friend as you think she is. I know, because I hacked into her email, too. She says mean things behind your back.

Why won’t you love yourself? You don’t need those weight-loss pills you ordered. Your body is perfect the way it is. And I like the stiletto heels you bought, but I wonder who you want to wear them for? They’re not really work appropriate.

When you love me, I will make sure you get caught up on your car note. And I will help you pay off that MasterCard. It must be hard, paying your own bills and helping your mother stay ahead of hers, too. You are a good daughter. Just one more thing I admire about you.

Why won’t you love me? I love you so much that when you got up to go to the bathroom, I walked by your cube and dropped my pen—so that I had to lean down into your cubicle to pick it up—and I smelled your chair. Where you sit. I know that sounds not-good, but I just needed to smell you. I needed molecules of you inside me.

I know you are a kind person. I know you visited Roberta in the hospital when she got herself hurt. You took up a collection for her and bought a card for everybody to sign. You forgot to ask me to sign it, but that’s okay, because I don’t like Roberta. She will tell you the same thing if she is ever able to move or speak again.

Why won’t you love me? When everybody was in diversity training, I snuck into your cube and took the key ring out of your purse. It only took me twenty minutes to get copies made.

And when I called-in sick the next day, I really went to your apartment. I checked it for security. To make sure you are safe. That is how much I love you. I lay in your bed and pretended that you were there next to me. And later, in the bathroom medicine cabinet, I saw the iron pills prescribed for heavy menstrual bleeding. The SSRIs for the depression you hide so well.

I had a bowel movement in your commode. And I did something to your toothbrush so that you will have molecules of me inside of you, too.

Why won’t you love me? It hurts. All of this hurts me so much. We are so very close. Do you hurt?

It’s the new HR Director’s birthday today, and I wonder if you’ll think to ask me if I want a piece of the cake? I am right here. Right here next to you. All you have to do is turn around.

Why won’t you love me?

These people don’t know you. I know you. How complex your life is. Your financial difficulties. The menorrhagia that leaves you anemic. Your body dysmorphic disorder. The burden of caring for an elderly parent.

I bet if anything ever happened to your mother, it would devastate you. And free you. It would break down that wall you’ve built up. You would need someone to be there for you.

What will I have to do, to make you love me?