I hate my acne,
How it blemishes my cheeks,
Leaving scars for you to trace in the dark
as you kiss away my skin

2. I hate my weight.
The rolls of fat unevenly proportioned around my middle
so that my jeans will never
fit "just right"
and my broad shoulders reminding me every time
I pull on a shirt that I'm not built like a woman

3. I hate my appetite.
My stomach's never satisfied with a salad or a soup.
No,
I need the whole **** steak.

4. I hate my laugh,
how it crescendos through deep rolling hills
starting in my belly and ending in my soul.
It's infectious, because
once I start
you can't stop

5. I hate that I'm beautiful,
because I know that I'm not,
but ****, when you look at me like that,
I outshine the stars.

6. I hate my honesty,
"No, I'm fine," why the hell can't I just say that,
but no,
I have to go bare my whole soul to you in hopes that
you don't bare it right back

7. Man, I hate that I'm faithful.
I hate that I'm never gonna throw in the towel
when things get tough,
and that every time you leave, I'll stay

8. I hate that I believe,
believe all the lies that you feed me,
hoping, maybe, by God's grace.
It's different this time and you'll stay

9. I hate myself.
I'm too good for you,
and not good enough for you,
and I'll never
ever be what you need,
but I keep trying and changing to become
bad enough for you,
and good enough for you,
and to somehow attempt to be what you need.
I hate myself because I have lost myself.

But 10.
Mostly, I just hate that I give a ****.
I hate that I care about myself,
my weight,
my height,
my face,
my attitude
I hate that I'm not happy being me.

What they don’t tell you in school,
while you’re trying to remember
the difference between prophase and metaphase
chromosomes and chromatin
is that really
biology isn’t science
biology is life


See, divorce
divorce is like mitosis
slow to start, but quick to finish

Begins at prophase
when conflicts arise as your family’s nucleolus,
your family’s unity
disappears

Your carefree life, your chromatin,
coil and change
become tight, tense chromosomes

Outside forces, mitotic spindles,
residing in the cytoplasm
start creeping towards your parents
to separate their souls

Metaphase:
you’re all lined up
single file
ready for battle

Centrosomes, middles of each new life,
poised opposing each other
with their spindles latched onto you kinetochore, your middle,
like a dog with it’s leash

Anaphase:
everything separates,
your world’s torn apart
and you’re left silently
watching
alone
as your sister is torn from your life

Telophase:
the pain starts to lessen
as you uncoil
and your broken family’s nuclear membrane
begins to reform

Once the paper’s are signed
once the cell’s wall’s rebuilt
your old life is over
and the process
it’s finished

See, they don’t tell you
don’t think you need to know
that
divorce is simply biology
and
mitosis
well, it’s life

I wish I could paint the contours of your body
onto my skin with invisible ink
So you would be secret
And you would be special
And you would be mine

I wish I could sketch your face into the craters of the sky
So that when I looked up at the man in the moon
I would really just be looking up at you

I wish I could tattoo my heart onto your soul
Then I would be with you always
And you would never leave my side, but

I wish
I wish
I wish


And as I stare up at the black heavens,
searching the chasms that imprison the stars
I wonder if this is what loneliness truly feels like

Like, what if the night sky, the most beautiful thing in the world
Was really only beautiful because of me always missing you

And what if all I needed was to reach up
And embrace the stars

Remind them
That they are not alone in this cold, forsaken universe
Remind them,
In the end, not much matters, we all die
But
Remind them
Death is not the end, but the beginning,
The beginning of perfection

What if what I really needed was to
Burn up with the stars
Blaze crimson in their cold light
And just
Disappear

Would you miss me then?
Would you come back, crawling,
hoping, just maybe, it's not too late?

Well, darling,
let me tell you something,
it's never too late.

I wish I could see your face again, watch it crinkle as you laugh at something I said, relish in the witnessing of your eyes settling on mine and making me feel perfect, so perfect that I require myself to look away, and remember, you never actually loved me.

2. I wish I smell the strength you’ve always exuded, The fresh laundered sheets, mixed with the sweat of your brow that always left me faint in the knees, knowing it was that smell that sent me to heaven every time you came near, so near that I had to remind myself, you never actually loved me.

3. I wish her head fits as perfectly in the crook of your neck as mine did, because she deserves to experience the feelings I did, all including that painstaking moment where she realizes, you never actually loved me.

I want to give you all of me because
you need it more than I do
You need my soft hands,
my supple heart, my forgiving words
So much more
than I need myself, my time, my being
More than I need my life itself

See, I’d forget myself to help you remember yourself
I’d let you steal my heart to fix your own
All so you can feel whole again,

but when you don’t need me anymore
when my fingers don’t fix your pain
and my heart doesn’t sooth over your wounds
and you decide you’re better off without me,
don’t forget,

you weren’t a chapter in my life
You were my whole book
And, yeah, you can write yourself a new one
With your perfected body becoming the star
And you can go,
and leave me
and start a new novel in your life

but me, see, I can’t move on
because in fixing you
I broke myself
And I can’t even write a new sentence
Without every single word being tainted by your breath
Let alone start a new books

I’m sorry doesn’t even begin to cover
the list of apologies I have to make to you,
but that won’t stop me from trying

I’m sorry that I let you fall in love with me
opened my arms and welcomed you into Hell

I’m sorry I didn’t warn you
I am not an angel
I’m a time bomb in disguise
and the closer you came, the faster I ticked
until my world lit up in an array of technicolor fireworks
worthy of a Texas Bicentennial Independence Day celebration
with you as my Grand Finale

I’m sorry I’m a creature of habit,
because although I say enough
I really mean I need you more and,
Darling, that is not fair
Because you need space to become yourself again
and I need fresh air before I stitch up the pieces of my life
I desecrated just through being myself

Oh, yeah, and I’m sorry I’m myself
because myself is never going to be good enough
or pretty enough
or perfect enough
for you parents and
no matter how hard I try
they’ll always be wishing
that you had dated my best friend instead
and I’m not sure you can live with that
so I'll leave before I hurt you worse
and with my dignity still in tact

but I’m also sorry for saying goodbye
because all I can think about is how nice
it was to belong to someone
and now I can’t even look at you
without my heart exploding into fireworks
wishing we were still there
staring up at the stars and
promising each other eternity
saying that as long as the big dipper shown
we wouldn’t stop loving each other

I’m sorry I kept that promise
because even though I said goodbye
left the best thing that had ever happened to me
I. Still. Love. You.

So I’m sorry for all the unwanted pain
unnecessary heartbreak
unneeded audius

I’m sorry my love isn’t ever going to be good enough

Daddy, I have grown up and
Daddy, I have become a woman and
Daddy, I do not need you anymore
I have learned to live without your love
to starve myself from your embraces
because I got tired of expecting something
that wouldn't ever come
Exhaustion is a beast
it eats up all your reserves
and greedily asks for more, but
Daddy, my soul has no more to give
I have nothing left to feed it
mo more energy to devote to waiting anymore
I am broke
and you never came
And I wish I could have packed up
and moved on, but
Daddy, I never heard you say it,
I am proud of you
Five single syllable words
Oh, I heard them plenty
when I had gotten an a
or when I won a medal
Or when I did
something so spectacular
that I was lucky to wear your last name
but, Daddy, what about all the other days
you were only proud of me
when I made you look good
so what about my car crash
what about my fractured fingers
what about the times I broke my heart
So they weren't my crowning glory
and they definitely weren't my favorite memories
but they're still mine, and they still define me
And I don't know, can you be ok with that?
Can you look at me, busted head and all
and say, I am proud of you?
Daddy, I have grown up and
Daddy, I have become a woman and
Daddy, I do not need you anymore but
Daddy, that doesn't mean I want you to leave

Summer, you were anything but ordinary
you kept me on my toes

I mean, how many horses can say
that they were sling loaded out of a canal
because they were too enamoured with the water
that they refused to leave

And how many horses could say that
They spent a weekend herding geese
just because it was fun

And how many horses
had the guts
to try and scale a wall
with a broken leg
just because I asked them too

Just one, Summer
and that one would be you

I never thought death could be graceful
and
I never thought passing could look so serene

I’d heard all the horror stories
and I’d seen some myself
but you my dear Summer,
couldn’t be like all the rest

Before your body kissed the dirt one last time
you didn’t crumple, and your knees didn’t buckle
you simply gave me one last breath
A final goodbye
before swiftly laying down

When a large animal falls,  
It’s traumatic
but when your body hit the ground
stars fell out of the sky
they made room for your presence
and they showed you where to go
So that when you graced them with your appearance
illuminated the sky with your glow
I could still trace your tail,
brighter than the moon
as you became a star

I’ve never been good at writing eulogies
and I forbid myself to say Adieu
It’s always been see you later, Alligator
or after while, Crocodile
It’s nothing so blunt as Goodbye
Because Goodbye is not open ended
and goodbye does not leave room for next time
and goodbye is finite
and I live for infinite moments
stretched out beyond our galaxies
for forever to kiss in the palm of it’s hand

And you ruined my infinity
**** inconvenient horse
Not only did you say goodbye
kiss my old sweatshirt until it was covered in dirt
filthy my face with your nuzzling antics
but you said, mom, I don’t wanna go
and on two broken legs,
you followed me around
and pleaded, mom, I can do it
I just need some time

**** it, horse, don’t you understand
I cannot give you more time
I cannot let your agony stretch into eternity

I can kiss your head so many times
that I forget what I taste like
and remember only you

I can breath in your scent so many times
that I can no longer smell the air around me
but only your sweet stench

And I can hold on to memories so long
until they crowd my vision
and I can see nothing else

But I can only say goodbye once
And you knew this, so you said goodbye
enough times for the both of us

I have never been good at writing eulogies
and I hate saying Adieu
but Summer, I will bend the rules today
just to say I love you
and
Goodbye.