Maybe I learned it face down into a pillow
          Feeling heavy day old mascara lift off light eyes, salvaging the reputation
that enervates, dead-beat bones. Maybe it was the way
     Boys seized at your hair
         only to learn that man-handling pins down your sanity
Left wondering if he really thought you were a *****.
    Maybe it was how I’d cut
         my knees scaling the rock invested grounds
of the alley between our houses; slitting my legs
     into paper cut towns, rolling with vigor. Maybe it was how you
         Didn’t learn to exist without being wanted
How the right amount of despondent desperation in a voice would launch her hips,
     and they’d sit layered in his smoke and your culpability,
         compulsive, taking in the show. Wishing you hadn’t attended
Or maybe it was how we read each other romance novels
     in the lunchroom, sharing particulars
          of genitals and true love.
Maybe it was the way we learned to be quiet
     our insides begging for touch one more time, the sweetness
          we discovered in the bones of each others backs, in the closeness
I felt when you told me about your relationship with your mother
    Maybe it was the face close, Lips on the side of a neck.
           Fingers run down your spin. His we still aren’t together
I wonder when Haley comes back. The way he alone,
     creates the complete ruination of a half broken body.
           The way I loved him anyway
the way you learn to stay quiet.