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.