Did you ever think of staying?
Or was leaving the only way
you knew how to love me?

Was I too much,
or not enough?
Did I ask for things
you couldn’t give,
or did you offer less
than you were able?

I wonder if you held back your truth
to protect me,
or to protect yourself
from watching me fall apart.

The answers don’t come.
But the questions—
they stay.
Lodged somewhere between
my ribs and my memory,
quiet,
persistent,
unanswered.

We said we’d never stop believing
in fairies,
in kindness,
in return phone calls.

We swore we’d never
become like them.
The adults
with milky eyes
and calendars
and knives
they only use for mail.

You said we’d grow up
but stay soft.
Like peaches.
Like lullabies.

You pulled your own tooth out
in second grade
just to see if the blood felt like something.
It didn’t.
But you didn’t say that out loud.

I held your hand
and told you it meant
you were brave.

You said the tooth fairy would bring you
everything you circled
in The American Girl Catalog.
You got two dollars
and a cavity.
Welcome to Earth.

I still have some of my baby teeth
rattling around in a film canister,
in the same box as my First Communion Dress
and my Princess Diana Beanie Baby.

I thought I was just saving pieces.
I never knew which parts of girlhood
were meant to be disposable.

As if saving them
meant I hadn’t lost
the rest.