One hundred feet away I am an enticing splash. Two feet away I am slow drying cement. The grubby hands of uninvited schoolchildren fight each other for space, begging to declare they were here. This is my first taste of desperation.
In a December 2012 circle, I could not cry. New and naive, I still believed we'd met again. Who we are at seventeen should not define who we are for the rest of our lives. I imagine a prettier April. Lighting a cigarette in my parent's living room, I am careless, the coffin nail burning a perfect circle in blue sweatpants. Across the street, I climb atop a small horse. Galloping, my inner thighs bruise with familiarity. My pony calls this learning and all the men in the audience agree. Achey, I enjoy the pain of forced adulthood.
I was eighteen the first time I remember being mistook for a prostitute. In lilac cutoffs and a tie-dye t-shirt, my tips from a busy summer day spill onto a gas station counter. "Be careful out there honey. You are so young." Her voice quivers with pity as she beckons her co-worker. Afraid of my youth, the sweet nectar of a freshly untethered sexuality, the second store clerk scolds, "But you're so pretty."
A man, circles his car. "Where's your daddy, baby? You got a boyfriend?" Finger licking the shadow of a harness, my knobby knees carry me, sprinting, up a flight of white stairs until I am back in my room for the night. Climbing into bed, having nothing to grasp onto but myself, I pulled at my own orange hair and scream. An observer glued to a story in which I am not a character, a tragic symbol for a pain I've never known, I bend over to vomit. I should of cried when I said goodbye.
In a December 2012 circle, I could not cry. New and naive, I still believed we'd met again. Who we are at seventeen should not define who we are for the rest of our lives. I imagine a prettier April. Lighting a cigarette in my parent's living room, I am careless, the coffin nail burning a perfect circle in blue sweatpants. Across the street, I climb atop a small horse. Galloping, my inner thighs bruise with familiarity. My pony calls this learning and all the men in the audience agree. Achey, I enjoy the pain of forced adulthood.
I was eighteen the first time I remember being mistook for a prostitute. In lilac cutoffs and a tie-dye t-shirt, my tips from a busy summer day spill onto a gas station counter. "Be careful out there honey. You are so young." Her voice quivers with pity as she beckons her co-worker. Afraid of my youth, the sweet nectar of a freshly untethered sexuality, the second store clerk scolds, "But you're so pretty."
A man, circles his car. "Where's your daddy, baby? You got a boyfriend?" Finger licking the shadow of a harness, my knobby knees carry me, sprinting, up a flight of white stairs until I am back in my room for the night. Climbing into bed, having nothing to grasp onto but myself, I pulled at my own orange hair and scream. An observer glued to a story in which I am not a character, a tragic symbol for a pain I've never known, I bend over to vomit. I should of cried when I said goodbye.
