The first time I saw you, I thought I loved you.
I watch you and I think I love you only
By default- by the dulled crevices in your blue chevy nova I cannot drive
And the way you can huff ice by the street waiting for a bus,
With a knapsack your arms cannot fit through but
Still look like a man.
The first time I saw you, I thought I loved you.
I’m prostrate on broken tiles in the halls of the high school,
but things are broken a lot here
Anyway. A gash in my femoral spouts blood into my face and mouth,
warm and rich and thick so I know
I’m dying.



































You come running down the hallway. You’re an EMT.
I didn’t know. You do something but all I know is you’re holding
And breathing heat on me and you say It’sokayyou’regonnabefine
It’sallfinejustholdmeyou’regonnabeokaywe’regonnabeokay.
I believe you because
You are a man, and I cannot drive the blue chevy nova
Not yet.

When I see you again, I know I love you. I’m sure, but
You will not look me in the eye when I pass you in the hallway.
It must be amazing to be eighteen; to save someone’s life
And be ashamed.
One day, you look at me.
I run into a bathroom and grind fingernail stubs into the thick porcelain
Of sinks and pry at the mirrors. I wonder
When you look in the mirror, do you see yourself?
How do you know- for sure?
A girl kneading a cigarette into a stall door stares; she is that girl,
That girl with the dripping dusk heavy
on her eyelids, whose lips belong in a Klimt painting even though
they always taste like smoke.
She would steal my place in the Blue Chevy Nova because
We both know you are a man.
you know where you are going, but
The rest of us just want to leave.

The last time I saw you, I thought you loved me.
You are curled, hands alabaster silk and shaking
Around a corsage, a millionth of your body weight and
The most important thing in the world.
Your eyes are beautiful.
You struggle to lift craggy knots on your spine trembling
with the effort when you look at me,
look at me for too long. I am stupid
because I think your pupils will tell me things.
The last time I saw you, I thought you were going
To ask me to prom.
You asked the girl next to me.
She will go with you in the blue chevy nova and
Leave me behind.