It was the wild girls you called your friends,
the girls who wore only what they could steal
their skin tattooed with india ink,
the first to dare to paint their lips
violet, who showed up late,
then never showed at all.

Under the glare of outdoor lights
you watched them wrap
fingers around cigarettes,
bones and teeth chattering.
In the cold they looked onward
through pacific ocean eyes,
narrowed to hide
any tenderness,
moving with cuts newly scabbed
a week or day before.
There was always someone older,
a fearless woman with cropped hair
they just couldn’t help but study,
there was always some boy, watching.

They were the first girls you knew
who ditched class, who popped
a crystal filled pill, who stayed
awake until three each night,
pupils wide.
You watched them fall
quick and bright and beautiful
into the outdoor pools of strangers,
you watched them disappear
then return to hold your hand
before you even had to look.

Oh, they were cool and secretive,
but sometimes they spoke to you
with such extravagant vulnerability,
about the time they stuck fingers
down their throat,
hoping to be skinnier, or the day
their mother demanded they leave
because of who
they chose to love. How you wished
that you could comfort them,
salvage their newly
pockmarked skin. For months
you watched them stretch
waiting for the moment
they’d break, as if
they’d allow you to gather the pieces.

The wild girls had the strongest
legs, the most coveted secrets,
and told anyone who’d listen
that they were okay
and had always been,
though in the narrow darkness
of an Old Quebec alleyway
after a few drinks
they would tell you of their
first time, and how they hadn’t
been ready.

The girls you loved
knew everything, guided you downward
and under, showed you what it
was to rebel. Now,
it is their lies
you want you revoke, the parts of themselves
they buried within or laughed away
as they learned too soon
too many years ago
what it took and took
to be unafraid.