Maybe One Day I Won’t Miss You
Maybe one day I won’t look at old pictures of us and throw myself back in time, feeling your hands on my skin, remembering the curve of your smile or the way you’d look into my eyes and I swear, everything else around me would blur out of focus.
Maybe one day I won’t have to pick up the phone to call you, hear your voice distorted by phone lines and static, interrupted by spotty service, muffled as you start drifting into sleep.
Maybe one day I won’t have to close my eyes and imagine your kiss on my cheek, won’t have to roll over in my big, empty bed and pretend the fortress I’ve made of pillows is your body, soft and warm and strong next to mine.
Maybe one day I won’t have this ache, dull and numbing in the center of my chest, reminding me of what I had, of what I’ve lost.
Maybe one day I won’t have to pretend I’m fine here, pushing through my days, lying to myself about where you are and what you’re doing. Acting as if I don’t think of you, even though I can’t get you out of my head.
Maybe one day it won’t have to be like this, miles and unspoken words between us, promises that we tried so desperately to keep but fell flat in our mouths like stale soda. Emptiness filling us instead.
Maybe one day I won’t have to wish, won’t have to feign indifference, won’t have to be reminded of you in every step, every song, every single day.
Maybe one day I won’t have to miss you. Because you’ll be here.
Because we’ll stop these games we play with one another’s hearts. Because we’ll finally grow up and tell one another how we feel. Because we’ll decide that distance cannot, will not have power over who we are and could become.
Because we’ll believe in love far more than we fall victim to fear.
And then we’ll step forward in faith. We’ll reach for one another’s hands. We’ll stop letting the past dictate our future, or our hesitancy allow us to miss out on possibility. We’ll quit talking ourselves out of a potential romance. We’ll push the negative thoughts from our mind and focus on the good.
We’ll quit trying to control love, plan love, analyze love and let it happen. Let our hearts feel, our minds get dizzy, our bodies touch, our spirits align, and our longing finally cease.
Maybe one day we won’t have all these hypotheticals, these ‘maybes’ these ideas that never fall to fruition. Maybe one day we’ll be confident enough to trust ourselves, to trust one another, to trust that love isn’t just a fading aspect of this generation, but something real.
Maybe one day we won’t have to feel so separated, so distant, so scared because we’ll be here. In the present. In one another’s arms.
Maybe one day I won’t have to miss you.
Because you’ll be mine. 
Marisa Donnelly is a poet and author of the book, Somewhere on a Highway, available here.
