1. When you’re riding your red Magna two-wheeler, don’t tighten your shoelaces. Let the occasional tug from your clumsy heels ease the friction in your bunny knots. Kick off with your right foot; wobble the left so you find your balance. Push hard. Feel the burn in your calves like your mom’s boyfriend’s sculpted deltoids. Keep pushing— just long enough to feel elated. When you find your butterflies, aim for the brush on the side of the road and remember how it felt when mom grabbed your seat the first time but couldn’t catch you. Fall with your hands first. Look at your hands. Pick the gravel from the creases in your thumbs. Don’t pick your skin. It doesn’t need to hurt worse than it looks. Go inside. Don’t fuss too much. Just knock and pretend that it still hurts. 2. The moment you realize you’ve started your first period. You’re anxious about it. Wad up two feet of toilet paper and tuck it between your legs. You know there are tampons under the sink. Turn on the television. Keep the volume at 8. Find Rocket Power, but don’t sing along this time. You’re too old for that shit now, and your mom is still sleeping. If you wake her, she’ll get all mom-like and tell you about that time in high school when she smoked weed once and met your dad in a walk-in pantry and how nice sex is but you shouldn’t have babies until you’ve found a man who deserves you. You smirk at the thought. Go outside and avoid clichés of your recent fruitful womanhood. Steal the keys. Practice parking the car in the driveway and never leave. Discover politics on AM radio. You’re too young for that shit. Realize that you are a poet and compare the colors on the dashboard to the rainbow assortment in your freezer. Go back inside and write down what you saw. Stay quiet. She is still sleeping. 3. You’re ashamed. Your mom married in Vegas to the man you loathe. You sneak a Gran Marnier miniature from their hotel room. You cannot stay in their hotel room. You’re forced to stay with your grandmother who passes gas when she steps on the brake pedal too hard. You open up to her about your dream of one day playing the guitar. You listen to The Smiths too much and write fake proposals to Johnny Marr. She says the guitar is a feminine instrument and that Papa played a hummingbird. You suddenly don’t mind the gas and show her how you like to ease the brakes. You think you’re drunk, but you’re just thirsty, so you ask to go to a gas station. You buy her a popsicle with leftover Easter money, even though you don’t celebrate it. Suddenly, you notice how the Vegas strip matches the dashboard. 4. You think you’ve found a man who deserves you, so you pierce your ears. You spend your spare change on making out with him and his stale gum at the Edwards Cinema. You start thinking about strawberries and how they are always the brightest in Santa Maria. Perhaps the sweetest but you would never know. You hate strawberries. You realize you are still making out with that boy and he didn’t even buy popcorn. You go to the bathroom and call your mom to tell her about the man who might deserve you but never buys popcorn. She says he’s no man and that you should get home right now. You take the bus home and find her on the couch. You sit and she puts her arms around you. She tells you she’s proud, you’re important, her world. Her eyes are puffy neck— purple. You look around and see empty corners. You get up and walk to the kitchen. You pour her a glass of ice water and reach into the freezer. You pull out two purple Otter Pops because they are your favorite. You hand one to her. You teach her how to fall with her hands first and how you discovered poetry in the driveway and how you got drunk with Grammie in Las Vegas. She smiles. Squeezes your hand. And you fall asleep. credits license all rights reserved

So I’m an asshole and I’ll bet you know it but I never stopped digging my nails into your skin every time we kiss. And I’m an asshole for loving the taste of your spit when you’re drinking. And I’m an asshole who might write you a slow song but I’ll bet you’d find me sinking into a melody I’d rather hear you sing. And I’m an asshole who looks at old photos of you smiling and maybe wasted off whiskey and tasting my eyelids at 3 am. And I’m an asshole who “doesn’t deserve you” or the words you bend around my neck. And I’m an asshole who can’t pick a movie or pick up a bar tab or choose what to eat, who steps on your toes when you try to dance with me, who picks fights and throws things out of jealousy, who can’t stand not to be seen by you. But I’m the asshole who brings you coffee, creates a shield when you sleep, pictures you in music magazines, and loves the way your hair does itself in the morning. Who also loves the taste of your spit when you wake. Who traces the hurricane on your nude leg. Who plans mystery candlelit dates in bedrooms on floors in trailers on the beach— and falls apart, comes undone at the seams when nothing works out perfectly. But I’m the asshole who will never get you no matter how much my liver can take. And I’m the asshole who can’t stop trying to tell you what it means to be your whiskey and lilies and everything in between. Who won’t stop sobbing and making everything about me, afraid you’ll never feel anything. I’m the asshole who just keeps saying “I’m sorry.”

“You are impossible. I could give you maniacal sex and homemade peanut butter cups. You won’t let yourself love, and I am adequate at least. Here, on this concrete bridge. Do it. I won’t tell anyone if you want to indulge in me. I know your body. No one else knows your body for its constellations. They’d rather play dot-to-dot on your shoulders. I am not asking for forever yet. I’m asking for the opportunity. Yesterday, on the train, you bit my lip. Tonight we are fighting in Grant Park. My roommate is in love with me again. You are selfish and envious. You are everything I want. You are the frozen waves at Ohio St. Beach— polluted and brittle. You are the syncopation in a jazz song— forced and stunning. You are the heart of an artichoke— tender with slivers. Why won’t you love me? Why won’t you love me? Our imperfections are not coincidental. They are jigsawed, the way our ears hook when we press our breasts together. Like what we are doing now. I am ductile, the way I am spun around you.”