The future is uncertain,
and i don't know what i'm trying to say,
i just wrote this
and
hoped it rhymed
along the way

my growth plates were still open and my weight was still shifting
and you tried to seep into the fault lines, tried to make your mark before the cement dried
and i bet it broke you when you realized
that many more layers have been paved over the place in my heart
where you once impressed yourself upon

you were a dark tunnel and i couldn't tell if the light in the distance was the blissful end
or just another overhead lamp that would pass as soon as it came
so i kept waiting, hoping
until the lights began to flicker and i couldn't even hope for an end because it all looked so ****
faulty and artificial
and i jumped off the train and a funny thing about momentum is you don't realize
just how fast you're going until
you're arguing with inertia
and adjusting to the stillness of the ground below

love is all in your body,
some people awaken it in your mind,
some your heart,
some in less-talked-about places,
but it's all love and it's all need
and some love highlights the hollowness of your body parts,
while other love fills it.
I think most people refer to "love" as the one that lights all of your body parts on fire,
but every ember is love,
every flickering flame is love,
different kinds of love,
different colors
different temperatures
some will warm you,
some will burn you,
some will leave you scarred,
some will leave you hurt but purified.

i was 10 and you were 13 and you were my idol
and wherever you went, i hurriedly followed,
and you smelled like perfection and behaved like it too,
and i don't remember how it started but,
you were telling me about a boy from camp,
and you said "i want to show you what we did"
and you kissed me
with tongue
with groping
you really kissed me
and we knew it was wrong but we didn't know why,
but we kept quiet,
it became a game and we role-played,
but we never played ourselves,
you were always the boy,
and i was so fascinated by how your tongue was touching mine,
yet i felt it all through my thighs and
even somewhere more unreachable, somewhere i couldn't locate,
not the place i peed from, no not quite,

And then at some point we both stopped,
i learned the word "lesbian"
and it scared me because it didn't apply to me,
and we never spoke of it, not a year later, not 5 years later.
We spoke of everything but that.

i liked your politics and i liked that you liked women
and i liked your ex girlfriend
but you were a little too macho and
you wanted to rescue me from something
but i liked calling you when i was ****** and telling you
how funny constellations were
and i liked that you sat and listened to me interrupt myself
and you got me so high (with drugs) and i leaned my leg into yours because it felt good
and you leaned in to kiss me and i let you because it felt good
and you drove me home and i was sobering up and you leaned in to kiss me again
and i didn't want to
i did it because i didn't want to see you humiliate yourself
you asked me to hang out many more times
i made up excuses every time

i'd seen you around school, i watched your wrestling practices after i was done with track,
one time i saw you almost get into a fight with one of your teammates
(but when we actually started talking, i didn't connect the two images together)
our conversations were of ****** nature and you told me you lived in my subdivision and i thought 'this is great'
and we met up in the heat of summer and we went to the pool and i was a little alarmed by how quickly
you became comfortable with grabbing me and holding me
and finally we sat down and i thought it was awkward to sit on a stranger's lap
especially when your hand wandered south and i couldn't keep my breath from becoming shallow
and i couldn't help throwing my head back and
i thought "this shouldn't be happening"
and i thought i'd fix it by hungrily kissing you
but then you picked me up and said bend over and i said No and you whispered in my ear, you said
"are you scared of no longer being a ****** tease"
and i said "n-no, that's not it at all"
and i was disoriented and i was scared
and i don't know why i loved it so much,
i don't know why i fell in love with you,
i don't know why the next week was spent mostly with you,
you were so good with your tongue but so bad with self control
and you taught me how to raise goosebumps with my breath
and you taught me that arousal makes men angry
and you taught me to never flaunt myself ever again,
i cried because you were going away to college,
you begged me to sneak out and comfort you when you were arguing with your parents,
i don't know why i fell in love with you,
but i fell out of it in the same way,
you left town for a week and the fog in my head cleared,
i ignored your calls and was so relieved that i never pointed my house out to you.