honors english, 2018

don’t ask me

how I began to love

how I began to breathe

freckled faces and crinkled noses same as seven o’clock cartoons

and apple juice

remember watermelon hair and pink stripes or flying from tree limbs

no concern for our own

minutes dripped like honey

slow / sweet / no expiration date

now they rush like the river

we trampled through

splashing slumbering frogs

into survival mode

Is that where we are?

cramming slippery palms

into fragile embrace

no questions.

stirring on shared tongues

& coffee mugs

all girls love like this

we’d sing the hollow prayer

into sixteen

into boys we called by different names

& let’s play pretend

is it just me / you never ask

anymore

remember first period english,

sticky notes / love letters

call me ros / you’re my guil

and I don’t know her

anymore

or are you my reading lines now? you smile, my stomach boils

and it’s all just a little too melodramatic for the dead.

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Cover Photo by Amanda Pirani.