Mommy said if he's mean it's because he likes you.
She said boys are backwards and upside down.
She said boys are young dumb and fullofcum.
She said close your eyes when you fall so you don't see how much it's going to hurt.

I still have bruises, she said.

And I missed you
am missing
miss -
you.

Come home
this is your promise land
and I promise to love -
you.

Stay stay
tomorrow and today,
you're the one I want when skies are grey or -
blue.

the thing about writing is
what you write can be true
but that doesn't mean it's right.

The past is always relevant; but maybe we ought to ignore it.

If we have 20/20 vision in hindsight, then foresight blinds us.

I refuse to believe fate and coincidence are the same thing.

There's no way to talk about fate without sounding pretentious, but I will try.
You were exactly what I needed precisely when I needed it.
I needed you to be far away so I could nourish my independence and learn how to love something without touching it. Because no one taught me you don't have to touch everything you hold dearly. Sometimes the things we love have to remain under glass cases.
And sometimes to touch something is to hurt it.
I needed you to not need me as much as I needed you.
I needed you to ignore my advances.
I needed you to be snarky.
I needed you to have brown hair and eyes the size of saucers.
I needed you to have an affinity for otters
So you could tell me that thing about how they hold hands so they don't drift apart.

I don't know how to end this poem, but I will try.
It was you in the red sweater with the white birds.
It was your neutral expression.
It was that you were up late and willing to chat.
These are the things that made you the exception.

Silly little girls
Waiting permissively for permission.
The world isn't that big.
And you aren't that small.