My (past tense) Wallflower, Towers To Deadlines

Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock fast, set, break your nails and leave sanity crying like broken sticks outside main street, or Merrill street, or the street that runs parallel to the river, that we cross to get your car and smell fake scents, pineapple, ocean breeze, fish rot and seaweed not part of the deal. Stamps necessary to carry out the plan: pink lids and clear stickers. Hundreds of pages, scatter, tower of literature and lesson plans.

Children are the damned, student teachers nervously stroking hair, like boyfriends who forget to say, you are so pretty, so pretty, you mean everything. Fuck. Cynical, or maybe, ready? Split thumb, bloody blood, mysterious culprit on the loose and causing harm to soy sauce and brown rice everywhere, which rots in your stomach and sets you down on couches to say, chocolate please, chocolate before men. Sixteen poems about penises and I’ve got a vagina. I’ve got a vagina! (Just in case you forgot.)

Wear your hair like a warning, level your lids like there’s a secret in your eyes. Count the days like relief will come, if not this week, than next, and who knows how passing happens for the first timers, the first timers, the late bloomers, the virgins giving it up, when no one can wait for the “right” moment because “right” doesn’t exist.

You were bound to be disappointed, you were bound to want to take it back, you were bound to have it defecated and defeated, brown, rust, red, relax, we’ve all got our horror stories and we’ve all shared saliva. I’ve had you like he’d had you, like she’s had you, drinks, drinks, drinks, write stories and let children believe in fairytales. Write yours out like cider gone hard. Like wine turned vinegar. Sell it for a profit, until I’ve had you like he’s had you, like she’s had you, like we’ve all shared saliva.