When I wrote your name in my diary,

I wanted those letters to know me.

Your hands were every stranger’s hand

I’d never hold. When I was a girl,

I learned how to love by loving.

Sequentially I loved all the boys

in the schoolyard, on the seesaw,

under the trees because

little girls learn alphabetically:

we are an ancient race

of little, fetal teenage people

and all of our troubles are real.

Copyright 2017 | Pet Murmur