If I had loved you.

Hi Becomers.

You see ehn, this thing I’m about to say… I didn’t rehearse it. Well, maybe a little — in the shower, in my head, and once while brushing my teeth.

But it’s a conversation I never got to have with one guy like that. His name is Ibrahim. Yes, that Ibrahim.

We didn’t fight o. No plates were broken. Nobody cried in the rain. But if I had said these things to him when I should have, maybe we’d both have sense by now.

So…

Let’s just say this is my own “If I speak…” moment.

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They said I was a fool.For staying. For choosing softness when all you had to offer were knives. They kept on asking me,"WHY"?. Why did you stay?, why didn't you leave?, why did you turn a blind eye? ..

And I never had the words.

Not the real ones.

So I’d shrug, or I’d smile, or I’d say something poetic like,

“Because I saw light in him.”

But they didn’t see the way you smiled when you thought I wasn’t looking.

They didn’t hear the tremble in your voice when you whispered my name like a half-spoken apology.

They didn’t feel the emptiness I carried long before you even arrived.

I used to believe love was enough to make people change.

So I watered you. Even when you rained on me.

I poured from places that hadn’t even healed.

And you drank like I was meant to quench your thirst, forever.

There were lies — not just the spoken ones, but the quiet betrayals too.

The way your phone turned upside down.

The way your attention faded just when I started glowing.

You called it paranoia.

I called it pattern.

Still, I stayed. Not because I didn’t know how to leave,

But because leaving felt like giving up on the idea that love could still be good.

That you could still be good.

But love,

Love is not correction fluid.

If I had loved you,

I wouldn’t have stayed when your attention faded—

Just when I started glowing.

When I started standing taller, living fuller.

You dimmed the lights and called it intimacy.

You say I changed. But, I didn't.

And maybe that scared you.

I began to fight battles I never started.

Arguments built from silence,

Insecurities dressed as jokes,

Criticisms whispered in the name of "love."

You handed me weapons and then blamed me for the war.

I was being killed.

Not by your fists.

But by your neglect, your gaslighting.

Your ability to disappear while still being in the same room.

You were the absence that shouted louder than presence.

Your love was conditional.

If I wore the right words.

If I laughed only when you said so.

If I didn’t outshine you.

If I kept shrinking.

And I kept bending.

Because I thought love meant endurance.

That pain was proof of loyalty.

That if I stayed long enough, you’d soften.

But softness should never be one-sided.

If I had loved you…

I wouldn’t have stayed.

I wouldn’t have let my heart become a refugee in a home I built.

I wouldn’t have let your insecurities rearrange the furniture of my identity.

I wouldn’t have made excuses for a love that came with expiration dates every time I dared to grow.

I was dying—slowly.

But I kept living.

Because some part of me believed there was a version of us that could work.

That maybe your silence was just fear.

That maybe I could watch you into becoming the man I needed.

But you never needed to change.

Not for you.

Because I was the only one bleeding for us.

The only one breaking and calling it sacrifice.

You gave me crumbs.

And I called it a feast.

Now, standing here…

Whole.

Healing.

Glowing without apology.

I finally understand

I never loved you.

I loved the idea of who you could become.

I loved the version of me I thought you'd eventually see.

I loved the potential—not the person.

So if I had truly loved you,

I would have walked away the moment I felt smaller in your presence.

I would have chosen peace over pretending.

Because real love?

Real love doesn’t make you question your worth.

It doesn’t feel like survival.

It doesn’t break you to prove a point.

Now, before somebody messages me and says,

---

“Ah ah, who hurt you?” 😩

Relax. Breathe. Nobody did.

I’m eating well. Skin is glowing. Heart is whole. I didn't go through this — I just passed the message.

Because some of you are loving people and losing yourself in the process.

You're twisting into spaghetti just to make someone feel full.

You're calling confusion “complicated love.” It's not. It's stress. 😭

So let’s be guided.

Love is sweet when it’s not dragging you like pure water sachet in Oshodi traffic.

Again, this was fiction.

But if it touched you… maybe it’s time to unfollow one “Ibrahim” in your life too.

Peace and sense to all my Becomes.

Let’s keep loving — but with our brains and our hearts.🫶🏽

Xoxo 💋

Halimat Omobolanle .