i once fell in love with a boy in my poetry class because he had blue eyes and was kind to someone, just once, and i liked that a lot. when we kissed in the back of his car he told me broken girls were the best kind. he still writes about me, sometimes, and i pretend he’s not writing about me, and he pretends the same thing. in his poems i am a mystery, a queen, an avenging angel who walked away and left no garden unburned.
in my book he never held back my hair when i was throwing up. once when i asked him what we were he said “a boy and a wolf.” i said i don’t feel like running anymore. he said that he loved that i was made to sink, to set teeth to skin. i said “i’m trying to be good” and he said he loved the failure in my trying.
in his words i’m a mountain, spread legs, an island. in mine i’m a girl who goes to get groceries and thinks he liked the sound of my name but never stopped to ask the meaning.
