Sometimes,
In my grandmother’s apartment
when the moon was half-cocked
and the word ‘cock’
was still dirty
but thick in my stomach
I read of the desire of men
through the screen
of a family computer
until my legs went numb
Sometimes,
On a dingy
second-hand couch
in the living room
I laid awake
with the weight of a man
between my legs
and the taste of blood curling
from a bite
inside my body
that wouldn’t heal
Sometimes,
girls were too soft
and clean
for me
as we played hide ‘n seek
and watched movies
where the pretty girl
got the nice boy
Sometimes,
the boys let me play
cops and robbers
and
hiding in parking lot bushes
I felt something
kneeling inside me
as his shirt stretched
across the thin points
of his back
to look out for cops
Sometimes,
I played football
when I could get away with it
with the bigger boys
who didn’t tackle me
as hard as the others
afraid I’d break
in a way
that couldn’t be fixed
Still,
the pressure of their bodies
pressing me
into the dirt
was enough to set fire
to the soil
inside of me