What do you suppose they think of when they think about us?
Maybe dirt and tarnished youth and sneakers wet with dew
(they're heavy on our feet and smell of stale air but we suck on rock candy and trudge down the avenues in them anyway)
We aren't all made up of dust and sharp tongues and some of us still have a while before we will learn to unknot our hair
(though yours was always silky on your back like curtains)
They saw him stealing glass bottles from the trash the other day and maybe that must be why they think these crystalline cuts on our cheeks are all our own doing
(Jem's father always did have a powerful swing)
I hope they think of greenhouses and bare feet and sweet breathing from fleshy pink lungs like carnations
or ribbons wrapped 'round fingers and blurry sleep-withered eyes
(perhaps they know us better than that)
(we both know that's a lie)