I met him in the past

but I forgot to ask his name.
Through early Autumn,
Winter, Spring --
I knew who he was,
where he was, the car
he drove, the music
he liked
and then summer came and
I couldn’t
remember him.

I remembered someone else
someone new. I fell in
love with someone else
someone new.
I was at my purest but
I had never done more impure
things this one summer.
love made me do crazy things
I wish I could undo…

I remember when I was twelve
and did not understand the
complexity --
what desire meant, how
it would feel, smell,
sound, taste.
I loved my family and
I loved my dogs and
my friends and my house.
That was all.
I loved no man when I was twelve.

I remember when I was thirteen
I had begun to crave new desires.
I watched the boys play soccer and
Lana del Rey, Blur, Radiohead
played on my
iPod touch.
I would talk about the boys
with spirit
to my friends for the first time
and I would feel guilty as these
foreign descriptions I savored expressing
poured out my throat…
The second best soccer player
dirty blonde
blue eyes
stocky build --
he was the first man I had fallen in love with
when I was thirteen.
I don’t think we ever kissed.
Just held hands…
As my girlhood pulsed.

When I was fourteen
I was homeschooled
first semester
I picked dandelions and poppies and
cart-wheeled in dewy grass.
My family adopted a kitten
and he died one year later.

When I was fifteen
I developed an addiction to xanax
I went to a new school
I was required to attend class a few hours a week.
My only friends at this school were my sister and
a curvaceous hippygirl named Naomi
with red acne that scattered her face like
stars in space.
Her only other friends
were old men and women.
Naomi told me she would talk to them on the phone
for hours and write poetry together on a shared doc.
My existence of desire disappeared.

When I was sixteen
I got bored of this school and switched to another.
My family moved out of the woods and to the sea
I was petrified.
My first day of public high school was scary.
I only knew one person,
a skinny, wide-hipped, artsy-dressed girl
with a fake laugh.
I forced myself to like her, I really did.
But I couldn’t believe she liked me
because she didn’t
and her frequent cancellations of lunch plans with me
forced me to seclude myself to the art classroom
sometimes five days out of the week.

When I was seventeen I fell in love.
I got a job and bought new clothes
and created a new style for myself that
everyone seemed to like and I made new friends.
It was this one summer when my desire came back
for the first time since I fell in love with
the stocky-built
dirty blonde
thirteen year old soccer player who would
text me links to his favorite pornos.

When I was seventeen I fell in love
for the first time and
I wasn’t supposed to.
We met online
the next day we f***ed
then we did it again
and again
and the morning after the fourth time
my friend and I hiked up a cement road
in which I spent my childhood
to a steep gravel sidetrail elbowing a hill.
The sun was hot, it was still morning
“I wanted to come here with you so I can scream my heart out,”
I told her.
“I’ll do it with you,”
she told me.

On the top of that hill,
overlooking an emerald treetop horizon
we wore daisy dukes and band tees
my stomach curdled, my heart was rotten
my mouth tasted like salt (from the boy
I was in love with.)
Together, we looked at eachother
as I inhaled I saw his face resurface --
his eyes ice blue, electrifying
my arms raising goosebumps as he strokes his
thick fingers along my forearm
in his bed and he covers my bare chest
with a blanket to keep me warm
moonlit showers at midnight
we drive and he admires San Francisco’s city lights
and says to me, “This is what I’m gonna really miss
when I’m gone.”

Seventeen
stupid
so f***ing stupid
and in love,
standing at the top of a hill,
summertime, late morning
we clench our fists and scream.