I’m eight wearing a frumpy
bunched-up dress with stockings
I put runs in that same morning
while rushing to pull them up
after peeing and flattening
my midweek temple frizz
the cool girls in their jeans
and angel|devil Ts are having
a laugh at my existence
they are white and built like
miniature bird-chested women
on asphalt my low heels
clacking like principal feet
another unspoken more bent
I want the sweat of boyhood
its ease and virtue on my neck
I want my cunning known
because I am the softest
I can ever be in this moment
when I don’t rough my mutt
hands on their throats
for making terrible light of
the second-hand / the sub
-human / the audacity of it
my survival / lower than lint
instead I talk to grass
but a sapling myself
I am made everyday like a bed
like a person makes another
and nothing ever asks to be made