age 6
you said “this is what friends do”
and placed a kiss on my lips

tell me how a kiss on the lips
became hands in pants
became “you can’t tell anyone”
when you saw my nervous excited scrawls about what we did in my diary

age 6
shame?
but I thought this is what friends did
I know now I’ll never tell my mother

age 7
you said you’d catch me a salamander
“okay”
I slip away a little more each time

age 8? 9?
these years are a blur
I know your brother touched me too

still never got that salamander

age 10
your fingers still ghost my skin
year to year

“i won’t bully you anymore if you be my girlfriend”
enough is enough
i slam my full body weight on those ugly hands

age 12
“I know what you did”
says your friend
I haven’t seen you in two years
yet you still come up to haunt me

age 14
“hey, you still live down the street? We should date”
how do you not realize what you’ve done

age 22
“Was he hot?” an old friend asks, probably on drugs
I show him your picture, shaking

later on I break an 8 year silence to ask you why.
“it didn’t happen again after that”
“it had a lot to do with age”
why can’t you just say sorry.

age 24
I still think about the things we did
you did
friends don’t kiss
friends don’t put their hands in each others pants
And I’ll still never tell my mother