What I wish I had the courage to say

Do you know what it’s like being with you?

That’s a stupid question, obviously you don’t.

Well, it’s sort of like being on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean.

You’re so grateful you survived the shipwreck that you almost forget you’re in the middle of the ocean

With no food,

No water,

And almost no hope of surviving.

Do you know the guy Taylor Swift’s dating in That’s the Way I Loved You?

Not her ex, the one the song’s about

But the other guy, the stable one who’s supposed to be everything she could’ve asked for?

That’s you.

I always know you’ll be there,

I’m pretty sure you care,

And I know it would be so easy to spend the rest of my life with you.

You’re the boyfriend that lives in Canada,

The one no one believes exists.

But you’re right here,

Right in front of me.

Being with you is realizing that I constantly settled for less

And learning that I deserve to ask for more.

Seeing you react to stories of my exes told me exactly how terribly I’ve been treated,

Which only made your treatment hurt more.

I wish you hadn’t taken the blinders off.

And I know, that sounds bad, but it felt like finding out you’re lactose intolerant when your job is eating cheese,

Thank you for the information but I have literally no tools to avoid it in the future.

Maybe it sounds like complaining, but I deserve to.

You told me I cared about you too much

When I told you I felt like you didn’t care at all.

And then, you asked me to be your girlfriend.

Well, you didn’t ask. You offered it up as a way to appease me

Like the label could erase the pain.

I didn’t tell you that right before that conversation I cried on your best friend’s shoulder for two hours over you.

You know, the best friend you helped plan how he was going to ask his girl to be official?

With twinkling lights, a specialized gift, and a romantic dinner in a place she loves.

The best friend who became my close friend as I desperately tried to understand you.

But this isn’t about him,

Or my other friends I vented to, asked for advice, or tried to convince we shouldn’t break up.

This is about us.

About how we’re breaking up in a matter of days, and I still feel like I can’t tell you the truth.

You think our breakup will be simple and easy, with no drama,

And I promise that I will do my best.

But I can’t promise I won’t resent you.

We’re breaking up because of circumstance,

Because you’re a “bad long-distance boyfriend”

And I’m too tired to ask you to try.

I shouldn’t have to.

I’m going back to a place that built my nightmares,

That crushed my dreams,

That convinced me I’ll never be enough for anything or anyone.

And you’re leaving me alone.

I know that I didn’t say that,

And I didn’t ask you to be there for me,

But you should know.

I’ve cried on your shoulder too many times for you to not.

You’ve held me in the aftermath and knew exactly what caused it.

I don’t want to tell you that I need you.

Because I honestly don’t think it will make a difference.

I’ve fallen apart in front of your eyes twice now

And you still saw what you wanted to see.

Sometimes you give me hints that you still can’t believe a girl like me would ever be with a guy like you.

I’m so out of your league it shocks you to believe I even saw you.

But that same belief told you that I could never be insecure,

That I’m successful so nothing could possibly be wrong with me.

Which honestly doesn’t make any sense.

You’ve heard the laundry list of things that have fucked me up.

You know the mask I put on for the rest of the world, since you saw through it the second we met.

You can explain to me exactly what I’m thinking and why I’m thinking it.

So why could you never see that I was unhappy?

Why could you never see that every text left unanswered or day that went by broke a little more of me?

I know I’m an actress but no one’s that good at pretending.

I gave you my heart,

It wasn’t on a silver platter, and maybe there were some pieces missing but it was all I had.

And you gave it back to me and told me to wait for a better time.

But I’m stubborn, so I snuck it in your back pocket and you walked away with it, never even realizing that it was yours.

So here we are.

Days from our mutually assured destruction.

You’ll be the action hero walking away from the explosion

And I’ll be the car you sacrificed to kill the bad guy.

I’m probably worth more in scraps anyway.

You probably think that what we had was just “fun”

A way to not spend our college years alone.

A guarantee that you could have sex whenever you want, without putting in the extra work.

A new friend with some extra benefits.

But this poem is almost 1,000 words long,

And I have thousands more waiting to be written.

Maybe one day I’ll be strong enough to tell you all of this,

To stop worrying about you more than myself.

But it’ll be a long time before that happens.

Until then, I’m telling strangers and writing stories.

Hoping one day you’ll read them.

By R. Regan McCall, written 11 August 2022