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