Margins

A coming-of-age tale of lust, loss, and the quiet power of being overlooked.

I
so we stuck to rule one: don’t say her name
let her vanish into the margins,
curling between equations and square roots

at recess, we lingered like awkward extras
in a scene no one rehearsed
hands in pockets, plucking lint
fingering small coins, staring at tiles
digging through questions

what hides beneath all those folds?
who decided where a zipper stops?
which horny god sculpted tongues, so velvet smooth?

lunch never came, so we invented it
scribbled her into hieroglyphs
on damp sheets

mothers, forgive us
we were biologists without a lab
test tubes brimming with rogue hormones
our bones twisted,
pores misbehaved
we stared into mirrors,
betrayed by our own geometry

tasting the tingling spit of a stranger
a clandestine discovery,
a secret pushing through us,
uninvited but inevitable
we liked it

the first kiss
a tidal wave
a starting gun
for stranger experiments

home alone
a chair with good posture
something borrowed
from the second drawer

two hands, eyes open - simple
two hands, eyes closed - fine
one hand, eyes open - tricky
one hand, eyes closed - disaster

the hooks like riddles
the clasps like noodles
diabolical catapults invented
by roman emperors with too much free time

eventually, click
two fingers,
eyes closed
both success
and shame
were all mine

II
we girls practiced too
we sat on bikes with seats too high
locked our legs around pillows
laid our tongues in salty palms,
and played dial tones
under down blankets
vibrating Nokias

for us, it was clear:
the boys would eventually screw it up
but as virgins, they were tame, almost endearing
we let them fumble, pant, guess
they didn’t understand us, and they knew it
until they forgot, and claimed they did

something in them swelled-
a great hairy balloon of bravado
that wanted all the space
would shrink us into something small, uncomplicated-
a name no one dared to say
shoved into the margins
lost in algebra

we let them inflate
we watched them rise
we waited for the pop

all men finally cracked
and there they lay
boys with scabbed knees
shivering in their own wreckage
as if they knew someone
would gather them up
and glue them back together

we remained

maybe this was love
a trembling equation:
unbalanced,
but breathing