cinnamon thighs and daddy boys • poetry

year 3

third grade and you got restless. it had to be you making the moves, pulling the shots. so you jeered at me when we changed for p.e. milk teeth chattering and honey eyes gulping as mocking words tried leaving your lips. your target was my pink underwear, bright and fluorescent against my cinnamon thighs (you came to love cinnamon. taste buds develop, don't they, love ?) i'd tried to hide it, premonition creeping across my shoulders and around my body. there was a picture of a monkey at the front. that's what got me. that's what you decided to mouth off about.

(underneath is what you'd be mouthing off some years later)