i asked you to love me in pieces, not all at once.
i’m not really significant to you unless we’re alone, so i asked you to do something—for me, really for us—but truly for me.

i asked for mindless intimacy. the intimacy where you grab my hand almost instinctually during a conversation im not part of. when you play with my hair during a game that requires only one hand and nearly your entire focus. when we’re laughing with friends and your eyes focus on mine for longer than normal. to be noticed, to be acknowledged without much thought yet full intentionality. as if loving me doesn’t require much more than a pinky promise.
i asked for this so that i could be reminded that you think of me even when it’s not just us. a reminder that you have peripheral vision for those you love.

that change hardly came. loving me and all my pinky promises took more out of you than you could even bother to describe. i make you sound like a villain so that i can hope to understand my feelings better. i was too anxious and i asked for too much. this isn’t pity, this is me trying to validate all the reasons why we didn’t work.

loving me in halves and wholes was too much to ask for even though love isn’t an outfit you put on when you feel like it. love isn’t water you die without. love is to care for and cherish, it gives and it takes.

how much more begging was required to receive love that came in quarters, halves, and wholes and not wholes and nothings?

I had the worst nightmare in broad daylight.
A daymare, you might say. It began with you and me curled up in our bed. I look at you still sleeping peacefully on our slow morning. The light is so soft and warm. I caress your cheek—gently so that you don't stir. A ring on my finger that looks foreign but most definitely feels right. Then I'm making us breakfast—layering fresh tomato, turkey bacon, mayo, and arugula on fresh bread. I can see it so vividly. I add feta onto yours and even more onto mine. I can't recall—did I take the food to our bed, or did we eat at the kitchen table? Anyway, I practically skip back to our bedroom to wake you up as the light envelops me whole. I'm in our home. Our home. We have a home together. You're in our bed. We share a bed. We share a life. I'm making you breakfast. We're going to spend the rest of our lives together. None of this is real. I'm awake, and for a moment it felt like the realest thing I have ever felt. Warmth and coolness touching in a sliver of time locked away in a memory. I miss our home we never had.

Small eyes full of love.
Fear.
Anger.
Big eyes full of pity.
Her mouth moves, but nothing is heard.
Her volume rises. Nothing changes.
Time passes as her voice drops.
She moves less and takes care just the same.
Life giver, oh life giver, what are you saying?
She bears on, drained, yet persists.
It will go on unseen.
Her mother is viewed as frivolous and silly, yet admired.
She too will be seen as such soon by the small eyes turned big.
Strong, tall, and determined.
Frail, twisted tree.
She speaks,
Her words are treated as silence.
She knows, so she speaks less.
Small eyes turned big begin to pity.
Repeat repeat as her words are run through and over.
Respectless and loved.
Unappreciated while fed.
Worshipped but unheard.
She is a quiet woman.
She is a quite woman.
She is quite a woman.
She is my mother.
I am her in every way I disdain and admire.
Someday, I too will swallow my words.

Two hours.
I'm supposed to wait two hours
to determine my future.
i can hear my mother's warnings in the back of my mind
oddly enough, all i can think about is diapers
none of this seems real,
yet i can feel the anxiety coursing through my body
my fingernails chewed down to stubs
the person in the mirror is hardly worth looking at
i can only see time swallow me whole, starting with my eyes
then spiraling into something beyond my control.
how
did i
end up
here.
two hours two hours two hours
my bouncing leg threatens to detach from my body
diapers. stroller. mom. baby. no dad.
last week i carefully picked out my clothes,
hoping the girls in my class would think i'm worth glancing at.
in nine months, i could be carrying a human that i bore.
at least i'll have time to process for nine months.
time to prepare.
time to mourn.
mourn for what?
a life you know you'd never have the motivation to live?
a life you know you never even had the potential for?
Was this supposed to be your life after all?
No living, only surviving?
two
hours
pass
in that time, i've settled on the brand of diapers i should buy,
how i'll tell my mother,
the nearest hospital to our house,
and how i'll have to quit smoking.
But then I look,
I look without thinking about it.
With the same impulsiveness that got me here in the first place,
I look.
There is no ring.
My life can resume.
My little life with no greater purpose.
My boring little life with no ring.

i used to like being alone
i really, really enjoyed certain things by myself
sometimes,
solitude was comforting.
but slowly i'm realizing i want you to be with me more and more.
it's terrifying, and my gut aches knowing i'm soft for another human being again.

what is it like,
to be the worm in the mouth of the bird?
what is it like to know it was meant to happen?
to be eaten whole,
nothing left behind.
i ooze, to feed your stomach
i ooze for a reason
it's not for nothing
the worm cannot be hurt when, even in the claws of death, the bird tells them it was right
it was supposed to happen this way:
never in any other
even while eaten in pieces
even
while sliding down the birds throat
even while knowing it's meant to be this way,
the worm must endure hearing the most painful thing of all
straight from the birds beak,
"i don't regret what i've done."

keep changing then
keep scooping out your innards
filling it with unrecognizable stuffing
smoothing it over for the girl in the mirror
keep carving out pieces of your skin
let them fall
let me gather them then
frantically sewing them together
just so that i have something left to remember you by
just so that i’m not grieving someone who doesn’t exist
keep altering the person i loved with all the tenderness i could muster
and with all the passion, i suffered.
keep fixing so that you can stand to look in the mirror.
maybe this anger and resentment is only masking the grief left behind in pockets and holes i pretend aren’t there

your old name on the bottom of my foot
and etched into fruit peels.
pretending that i wasn’t like a rag doll for you
pretending i was perfect so that the guilt doesn't eat away at me.
you’d even change your name
to resemble what isn’t.
what always was,
but was unfamiliar to me.
keep smoothing your skin over, dear lover
just please
let me know when you leave your old junk by the curb
so i can swing by and look it over
your skin rolled up like a battered rug
your veins as dried flowers tied with twine
some old bones as rickety furniture
brains for mildewed blankets
your heart as the pillow i lay my head on
the tear stains still noticeable after all this time
i'd softly kiss them off you had i been there.
i wasn’t.
so,
i'll watch you strip pieces so you can walk taller and prouder.
collecting your shaved and crumpled bits, in a weaved basket

flower picking.

no longer grieving, only accepting.