So tell me again
about how much you missed me
and I will tell you the way the stars shifted when you weren’t here.
Tell me how it was a mistake
and I’ll tell you about my car wrapping around a guard rail.
Tell me about how much you loved me,
and I’ll tell you about my nieces tears when she cried your name.
Tell me about how you waited for months,
and my bones waited for years.
Tell me about what’s fair,
and I’ll tell you how my skin is sandpaper from everyone else’s fingertips.
Tell me about how you would sacrifice everything to make this right
and I will tell you about my lost limbs.
So tell me, beg to me, plead to me that you can fix this,
tell me about the sacrifices to the old gods and the new,
because I’m not even sure I can hear you anymore.
about how much you missed me
and I will tell you the way the stars shifted when you weren’t here.
Tell me how it was a mistake
and I’ll tell you about my car wrapping around a guard rail.
Tell me about how much you loved me,
and I’ll tell you about my nieces tears when she cried your name.
Tell me about how you waited for months,
and my bones waited for years.
Tell me about what’s fair,
and I’ll tell you how my skin is sandpaper from everyone else’s fingertips.
Tell me about how you would sacrifice everything to make this right
and I will tell you about my lost limbs.
So tell me, beg to me, plead to me that you can fix this,
tell me about the sacrifices to the old gods and the new,
because I’m not even sure I can hear you anymore.
Lynne Schmidt is a mental health professional and an award winning poet and memoir author who also writes young adult fiction. She is the author of the poetry chapbooks, Gravity (Nightingale and Sparrow Press 2019), and On Becoming a Role Model (Thirty West 2020). Her work has received the Maine Nonfiction Award, Editor's Choice Award, and was a 2018 and 2019 PNWA finalist for memoir and poetry respectively. Lynne is a five time 2019 Best of the Net Nominee, and an honorable mention for the Charles Bukowski Poetry Award and the Doug Dramine Poetry Prize. In 2012 she started the project, AbortionChat, which aims to lessen the stigma surround abortion. When given the option, she prefers the company of her three dogs and one cat to humans.