The Closet Opens by Degrees

By | 1 February 2018

This is the year I make reparations
to my sixteen-year-old self.

I am closing every Messenger window,
burning her school kilt, and letting
the wool smoke choke everyone.

I am retreading sixteen like a warpath:
I demand to be kissed unremarkable
while we wait for the bus;
unroll me on your tongue
like fruit paper,

fuck me in every summer
we tried to avoid;

during grace at family dinner;
your stepmum’s house,
when your dad is home;

the old playground,
right there on the tanbark—

and then we’ll climb the bars
and do butcher flips,

and you could teach me
how to be here in ways
I never figured out on my own

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