My first cigarette was with you,
taken from the sewing kit where your mom hid them.
She was sneaky, and you were sneaky too.
We were 11, riding bikes in tube tops and lip gloss.
Lip gloss red,
lipstick
tight-lipped,
Cheap trick.
Cheerleader in the front yard.
We touched every inch of dirt with cartwheels,
chanting calls until we felt powerful.
There was a game being played—
but you had already lost.
Trying hard,
watch and whirl.
Look at her,
foolish girl.
Nights spent at your house,
watching your mom never smile,
your brother with his mean friends.
Pillows on the rough floor.
I knew some dads climbed in sleeping bags.
Sleeping bags,
full of sass.
"Close your legs,
you have no class."
When school was done, you were done.
There must have been a plan to pawn you off—
because you were gone.
No one but me was shocked.
Shock, dear.
Tock, dear.
I see the way
you disappear.
I asked.
It wasn’t even a conversation after dinner.
Lips closed, eyes averted.
You left with the first man.
Nobody watched from the trees
as each bite of you was swallowed away.
"Let me go.
You are fine."
Smile slap.
"You are mine."
I went on. I had resources.
I waited. I wanted babies
and placed an order. Planned. One. Two.
Conscious, different.
No prom pregnancy for me.
Broken pieces,
birth control.
Had no master,
kept me whole.
I kept moving, moving, moving.
You didn’t come home when your father died.
Your mother got ashy and old.
She didn’t plan well.
Your brother sells the family house.
Goodbye house.
A yard of graves.
You are the ghost,
too gone to save.
A "For Sale" sign poking up from the family plot.
Your desires waited quietly
until the flecks settled—
down, down, buried in the dirt,
only occasionally glinting in the sun.
Only me,
to the end.
Goodnight, girl.
Goodbye, my friend.
