“watch your mouth young man” reigning in those eyes (as falsely blue and pristine as a pool in the warm and syrup stain sticky sweet drudgery of the deep north end. children wading through the spots hot like the inside of skin vanilla icecream creaming down their wrists in rivulets and popsicles the shape and color of a dream rocket dripping- tiny neon red and patriot blue clouds bloom beneath the surface of the urban pond
dripulet, dripulet, dripulet)
I can just tell your mother warned those lips with a quivering finger and a voice clipped and heavy teeth crunching around the easy threats tossed at you: your knees raw as if scrubbed with steel wool and the lingering bitterness of backtalk and your first ***** word lay soft and white like moss or foam on the back of your tongue...
I can tell you gripped handfuls of braid in your hands at the playground and confessed love your whole life using destruction as a vessel. you tore out of your mother and tore and tore through childhood gripping and clawing and pulling heart constricting small and fierce the whole time like a fist in your chest.