deandra merrills

You seem like an MVP and I would do anything to cheer for your team. But it’s always an away game and cheering you on through a screen just isn’t the same. Long distance never really worked for me in the past, whereas for everyone else it always seems to last. But you deserve an applause because you have me anxious for anything from a simple phone call to just dropping it all to fly out and asking if you’re up for a game of basketball.

I saw the sun set and rise in your eyes and I don’t think you even know the color of mine.

I need to stop picking at my scabs and bruises just because I think it's poetic to watch myself bleed.

I let you string me along, but you don’t attach any strings to me.

I have let the tears I once shed for you become water under the bridge.

“We try and run away, but end up running back." We were two weights tied to the ends of a rubber band trying to run away from the reality or even the imagination but every step we took in the opposite direction snapped us closer together.

His smile would always tempt me, and somehow his eyes were inviting. He always hated it when I was needlessly apologizing, and made a hurricane seem like an absolute paradise. He was obliviously full of surprises yet completely indecisive. He drove me absolutely insane despite the way he made me feel so inclined to stay by his side. He had this way of enticing without saying a word and colliding into my soul without laying a hand on me. Every time his lips brushed my neck, I felt alive, revived, yet somehow still uptight. He made my muscles and heart relax and tense up all at once. He pulled me in with his overused lines that made me feel like he was saying them for the first time, the Casanova moves that would soothe and diffuse. No matter how many excuses I tried to make, I could never refuse his plague of a presence. I was under his spell, yet never fought it. I knew he would break my heart, and I handed him the hammer.

I don't want to be your girlfriend, I just want to be in your life, without becoming your wife, maybe more of a partner in crime, always there at the finish line,  but never for us to be combined.  I don’t want to be the love of your life or for you to be mine,  but I have too much love in my heart  to let it sit still. Instead, I’ll pour it out on you:  in the midnight hours of coffee runs,  in the afternoons of chocolate chip cookies, in the mornings of laughter.

But it's easier for me to ignore the fact that my heart still skips when I see you than to tell you that for some god forsaken reason I still think of you at 2 in the morning, when the dam's breaking without warning. I never cry in front of you, just behind your back. As soon as I let the door close and you drive away, the dam breaks and my body shakes with regret of not telling you when I had the chance. Not telling you that you and that smile are a hill that I was trekking to get over but now I’m just plateauing.

Our pieces fit together perfectly, but the picture it made was less than perfect. Our love story was perfect, but it would be a book that would only collect dust on a shelf. We were perfectly imperfect 80/20. But you always looked at the cup half empty. Our story was a classic. A cliche. The type people keep on their home bookshelf like a trophy and talk about at book club. But never actually read again. If we were a classic, we'd be a tragedy. Yet I'm still thankful that you happened to me. Hamlet lost his life, but lessons are still learned by those reading it centuries later. Our love story has taught me more than AP English ever could. I've stopped regretting the fact that I let our relationship fall apart before my very eyes because, no matter what we could've done, no matter which way you turn the page, we were bound to be each other's demise.

You wanted to settle down: meeting the family, joint checking account, scheduled date night every week, a meal to come home to at 6 p.m., group dates with your friends, labels and labels and labels. You wanted safety. I used to want form, a timeline for everything, a plan in place, and a backup plan just in case. I wanted conformity. But now, I want madness, I want steamy backseat windows, gasps in the moonlight, kisses that leave bruises, secret lipstick stains, getting a rush off second-hand coffee, I want adventure. Sometimes there’s more structure in madness, than comfort in conformity. You were everything I wanted to go back to, but nothing that would keep me content for long. He was everything I wanted to go forward with, but nothing that wouldn't break my heart.