Marisa Donnelly

We’ve reached two separate paths, like Robert Frost said.
But divided you cannot conquer both.

You apologize. The real kind of apology. The one that goes to the core of you, that brings forth tears.
That acknowledges your imperfections, even the ones you try to hide.

You apologize. Fully, in the way that really digs deep. You apologize for the little things, the big things, and the everythings in-between. You reach into the most guarded part of your heart and let those walls down.

You are broken, and it’s okay to be broken right now. You can’t rush your healing, and that’s fine. But you need to know that this feeling won’t last. You need to know that just because you’re hurting doesn’t mean you can’t get back up again, doesn’t mean you’re weak.

Promise me that we’ll never be too old for cones from the ice cream truck, for lying in the grass and making animals out of clouds, for squirt gun fights and pillow forts and talking in strange accents. Promise that you’ll grow old with me, but never grow up.

Life is too fragile to settle for a partner who is abusive, for a connection that is one-sided, for being with someone who sucks the energy and happiness from you on a daily basis. You are a person of value. You deserve care. You deserve respect.

Because she will inspire you.

I’ve decided to surrender to love. Because I can’t control it. Because I can’t plan around it. Because the world is filled with these unknowns, these chances we take for the things and people we care about. So I’m going for it; I’m going all in.

I like loving you like this. Like high school. Like silly, like stolen sips of whiskey, like Saturday afternoons with the whole weekend ahead of us. I like knowing we’re each other’s everythings. That we’re booth too young and foolish to know any better. To know that love hurts like hell.

Love is kissing you and feeling like I’m dizzy, like I’m melting into your lips as if the two of us were searching blindly our entire lives and finally found where our souls belong. That’s the kind of love I desire.

You’re not supposed to have a map of your life. You’re not supposed to know how things will begin or where they will end. You’re not supposed to know who you’ll fall in love with, at least not right away. And you’re not supposed to have the answers to those questions looming in the back of your brain.

I called you last night. Because I saw that picture,
because I wanted to know if your voice still sounded
like Saturday mornings with closed blinds,
an old truck with the windows down on the highway
in the sticky-hot Western sun. It did.