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# To The Girl After Me
- URL: https://www.merionwest.com/to-the-girl-after-me/
- Published: 2026-08-27T16:07:08.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-27T16:07:08.000Z
- Description: Amy DeBellis
- Author: MW Editors
- Tags: Poetry, Arts

> After he splits my head in half

> with his

> *where have you been*s

> & *where are you going dressed like that*s

> & *i need to feel respected*s*,*

> I bleed. Lie around on various floors of my

> apartment, feel sorry for myself & my

> open maw of a cranium. Then I sew

> 

> it back up. My mother never taught me,

> so I learn from a book: *Sewing Skulls*

> *For Dummies.* It’s not a half-bad job,

> 

> & my new wig covers it perfectly well.

> Then I stumble over his Instagram profile

> just like dashing my foot against a stone

> 

> & the stitches begin to weaken, loosen. 

> He’s grinning so big it looks like he

> might swallow the whole earth. I pull

> 

> the last trailing stitch out, bring the stapler

> down on my skull instead. Much faster. Oh,

> but then—I catch a whiff of *Daisy* and I know

> 

> you’re close. He always loved that perfume.

> Next girl, I fear that you may have become

> something of a meteoroid, hurling yourself

> 

> around the inescapable gravity of his star. 

> Got to be fun. Until you get motion sickness.

> My head must be festering, swollen with disease,

> 

> because my staples are popping out at sickening

> speed; one nearly takes out a lady’s eye. Nothing for

> it—hands clasped to my head, I stagger to the “Arts”

> 

> & “Crafts” store, pay one-handed. I catch sight

> of your smug & elusive profile. You’re texting

> him about all the sexy “crafts” in your basket.

> 

> But in the end, we both know this: you’re in his DMs.

> I’m holding the two halves of my skull together

> with kindergarten glue. We are exactly the same.

### Amy DeBellis is the author of the novels *All Our Tomorrows*, *Methuselah*, and *The Widening Gyre*.