When They Become Husbands

I wonder if his wife remembers 
his rampage in undergrad—
the moment he came out of the bathroom
and proclaimed his conquest of a new transfer
and received a line of high fives like
the Friday night football tunnel.

If he told his wife
how this young girl, 
scrambling for new friends,
came out of the bathroom
too inebriated to walk, fell 
like a stage dive into hands that
were willing high five him, 
but fail to catch her.

Stitches from a wall on her face,
a souvenir, just above her eyebrow.

If he told his wife,
before they had children
and she posted all of their happy pictures together,
him and his infant daughter,
how many scars
he gave the other girls in the dorm.

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Lynne Schmidt is the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor and mental health professional with a focus in trauma and healing. She is the author of the chapbooks, Gravity (Nightingale and Sparrow Press) which was listed as one of the 17 Best Breakup Books to Read in 2020, and On Becoming a Role Model (Thirty West), which was featured on The Wardrobe's Best Dressed for PTSD Awareness Week. 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 was a five time 2019 Best of the Net Nominee, and an honorable mention for the Charles Bukowski and Doug Draime Poetry Awards. 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.