Synopsis

Gravity is a collection of poems that explores the rise and fall of an intense relationship. The kind where the other person is the Gravity keeping you anchored to the planet and you worry that without them, you may float off into space.

And then it is finding the strength to realize the relationship is not what you want, after all. It is several years, several breakups, several attempts to turn yourself inside out only to find maybe this isn’t the person you’ve been waiting for your entire life, and that you are the only person who can heal you.

ExcerptsThe Last

This is the last fuck you that I can offer
The one that screams into the night—
Why didn’t you pick me?
Why did you let me slip through your fingers like melted ice?
Why wasn’t I good enough?
Why didn’t you ask, at least once, why is this over?

This is the final plea,
That gravity in the universe will bring you back to me.
Because planets rotate
And moons eclipse,
And I'm not ready to let go of this.

This is the seventh trumpet sounding
Letting the world know the sky is falling,
The end is near
Ring your bell, pack your bag.
The shores will rise to take you away.

This is the final march
The landslide sweeping away the historic remains
The last kiss
Last sleep
Last poem.

Because after this,
There's nothing else.

What I Want From Love

I don't want calm and gentle
Or the kind of love that comes in
When the tide is high
And fades out
With the moon light.
I want earth shattering.
A car accident
And broken glass
That takes weeks to vacuum out.
An aftermath so catastrophic it takes
Months to recover from.
I want gravity that pulls me back
To earth and drowns me in the sea.
I want black coffee
Straight whiskey
And moments that make your breath catch.
So much so I refuse to settle
For calm skies,
Or easy sailing.

Breathing Patterns

I learned to breathe in your arms,
pressed against your chest,
your heart setting the tempo.
Two beats in,
two beats out.
Your skin became a compass
used to navigate life;
A bad day meant palms fused together
like two cars in a collision,
metal and shrapnel so intertwined
paramedics couldn't tell my car from yours.
A good day meant finger tips on throats
pressure, patience, and patterned bedsheets that
needed peeled in the morning.
And so it makes sense that when your skin settled into
someone else's,
I was gasping for air.

To Make You Love Me

I should not have to plead to you,
to cut off my hair,
bleach it,
color it darker,
to get you to see me.

I should not have to scream
so that your head turns in my direction.

I should not gut myself
with my own knives
and wait, bleeding on the floor
until you come back to me.

I should not,
but I would have.
And I will not.

Now.

Gravity (Nightingale & Sparrow Press, 2019) is available for purchase on Amazon. 

Lynne Schmidt is the author of the poetry chapbooks, Gravity (Nightingale and Sparrow Press), On Becoming a Role Model (Thirty West Publishing, Spring 2020), and Dead Dog Poems (Bottlecap Press, Summer 2020). She is a mental health professional in Maine writing memoir, poetry, and young adult fiction. Her work has received the Maine Nonfiction Award, Editor's Choice Award, Honorable Mention for the Charles Bukowski Poetry 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 regular contributor for Marias at Sampaguitas. In 2012 she started the project, AbortionChat, which aims to lessen the stigma around abortion. When given the choice, Lynne prefers the company of her three dogs and one cat to humans.