I used to make my choices carefully,
keeping a menu of where I’d been.
Now they all taste the same to me.

My first boyfriend called me a tease.
It was over a year before I let him in.
I used to make my choices carefully.

Always tasted citrus gum on his teeth.
Orange-lime breath through a goofy grin.
Now they all taste the same to me.

Another guy smelled of tobacco and ****,
scratching his habits into my skin.
I used to make my choices carefully.

His kisses were like rice crispy treats,
sugary desserts while staying thin.
Now they all taste the same to me.

I go back in time whenever I’m lonely.
We’re eternally teenagers, acting on whims.
I used to make my choices carefully.
Now they all taste the same to me.

Sixteen year old girls hold
the answers to life.

They have ***
(with boys who have girlfriends,
across the front seat of an El Camino,
parked two houses down from her own,
where her parents await her return
no later than ten, unaware
that while they watch Jeopardy, their daughter's
hair rubs and frizzes against upholstery
that is older than her, and her head
occasionally bangs against the dark sidewalk
facing window, with a deep,
but gentle, thud)
and call it love.