I did not want to be a girl.
Girl was always a trap door
or a creeping hand.

 

A boy once called my body
a sad work as I raised my head
from between his knees.

 

I said nothing.

 

Instead I tried to crawl
inside the body of the boy
pulling my tongue across
the plane of his taste.

 

I came out a mouth full of soiled
flowers crushed under his heel.

 

Imagine the child in bloom,
how easy she was to bow,
like ripping a handful of flowers up
from their roots

 

I let the hair grow wild now,
gripping the tuft of it
from my chin between my fingers.

 

The harder I become to explain
the safer I am.