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 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 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.

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 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.

Many little children wander by
Ogling the window shops’ merchandise
Replaying dreams of Christmas past
Inside their infinite minds
As a glimmer of possibility
Hopes to peek through the July heat
— Moriah J. Chace