Childhood remembrances are always a battle,
To remember vs. not to remember,
My first year attending school
School administration told me I had to wear a skirt because that's what "ladies wore",
In the first grade
My father loved,
And my mother cried,
That same year
The girls in my class asked me how many pretty boys and lustful girls I would have to kiss to realize that's not how you find love,
I didn't realize until many years after,
What I did realize that year was that when I wrote my dad's last name next to my first name on the top of my paper I didn't feel so alone,
Even if my mom's had two more letters, each filled with more love than his could ever hold,
But never enough to make him stay,
In the second grade
Two little kids asked me whether I was a boy or a girl and I wanted to say neither, I wanted to say both,
In the third grade
I learned that if I wrote enough words on a single paper the footnotes would eventually grow a heartbeat,
In the fourth grade
Your kisses healed my bruises and your touch closed my wounds,
You taught me that it's important that my skin remember the miracle of itself,
My childhood ended when,
I learned that just because the poem ended didn't mean I had to end with it