It didn’t really happen. I was awkward,
a sloppy crocheting of clumsy hands.
I was scared of my body; or maybe,
I was scared of her body. Foreign,
but bright from the veil of curtains
slighting a late spring light. I kissed
like a maniac, but when it came down
to the business of pleasure, I could not
make a transaction. She later told me
I could have gone on longer
than my half-a-minute slow grind before
I chickened out. Even now, after
my fifth major relationship and plenty
of romping and dancing atop mattresses
mine and not mine, I feel my first ****
is how I approach love. Tentative,
too contemplative, and none-so-bold.
Perhaps it is because I learned early,
to hate myself, this body that is still
so new to me: twenty-five years owned
and I still don’t know how to love myself.
I just hope that one day, I will be that light
streaming into the room, touching everything
around it, feeling with tender warmth
the goodness of what soon hinders its path
casting shadows behind what I come to kiss.
