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"I like your lips"

"I like your lips" he said, on our 5th date, when he should have been staring at the screen instead of my face in the dimly lit theatre. Dimly lit enough so he wouldn't see the revelation in my eyes but enough to let me see him biting on his lower lips staring at mine. Or the way he wouldn't see my smile would have covered anything else that could've been written on my face. Or when I wipe a stray tear from my eye pretending the movie had me impassioned. 

If he had said he liked my smile, I wouldn't have had to excuse myself to the restroom or walk right out of the theatre into the rain wet streets and the alleyways so I could go home. If he had said smile, I wouldn't have had to buy myself a tub of ice cream and get into my favourite shorts, watch the notebook and bawl my eyes out. 

If only he had said he liked my smile instead of my lips. I could've stayed that night till the movie ended and we could have walked home, elated, in love, hand in hand. I could've sat in his apartment with a drink in my hands, my thoughts planning on a future about what I would name our kids and what we would paint their room. 

Instead I would now walk home, not turning back. I would be glad. Very glad for the tub of ice cream that would make me feel better and those words that made me realise before I wasted my voice and my thoughts on him after every date. The name that I would've called and left voicemails would now be in my blocked list, his memories buried when my tears dried. 

For if he had said he liked my smile, that would've meant he liked my gestures and not just the lips that would make my smile. For that would've meant he liked me for me rather than the flesh that made up me.