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There was this one summer
during the middle school misanthrope years,
when I was hating the world, contemptuous
of peers, searching for the perfect reclusiveness,
finding porcelain, cool as a crypt to bare legs in shorts,
I was obsessed with the bathroom.

Caved in by the shower curtain,
I braced the smooth solidity of the empty tub,
savored the reverberant echo of my over-dramatized
versions of Jane Austen's drawing room conversations,
indulged in writing sophomoric prose
about angry Rapunzels trapped.

Door locked, I was the imagined victim
of the bloody brand, the undeniable reality
of monthly menstruation,
a confusion that compelled me to bury
packs of ruined underwear under the sink.
For hours I could remain in panicked protest
of the use of the impossible tampon,
which I couldn't seem to master.

Examining blemishes, practicing smiles,
the mirror reflecting a retreating girl
perched on the toilet,
waiting for an end to the awkward,
the arrival of the imprisoned woman
on the brink of breaking out
of this privy of puberty.