red velvet cake sirens

here is a love
poem for my middle-school dance body--

take me for fat, 
     dissolving fingers, &
clumsy sticky bun skin--

let's all lean into the bathroom
mirrors--
     kiss three-day boyfriends
into forever from the hallway
behind the gym-- 

oh, no that
wasn't me-- 

     i was the one becoming 
a white brick in the wall 
of a gymnasium--

a lobby-walking 
     boy
whose body bit into 
red velvet cupcakes at
the bake sale table--

my best friend & i stood
at 
either           end 
& got
icing on our noses &
it was almost like kissing--

i wanted to kiss 
     my friends
& sometimes my own elbows &

sometimes 
my sweaty reflection in 
a middle school girls 
bathroom mirror
      where
i knew my own body 
as a red
     infection 

i stain lips-- i drench
your teeth maroon--
     & blushing rust
& scarlet blood

this body was sirens &
another thunderous song 
challenging 
our own heart beats

     oh who wasn't 
scared of their own body?

& i forgot deodorant 
so i used the runny 
pink soap in the 
bathroom to wash out my
armpits-- 
     let's make these
bodies clean again--

get redder with me--
hot oven coil cheek bones
   & they'll make
a game out of asking you 
to dance & 

you know your own body 
as a paper wrapper 
holding in the blood--

this body was used pads
rolled up like 
     scrolls

write your crushes
name on the wall of the
bathroom stalls you 
don't belong in

     yes 
it's time to be a brick--
lay heavy & cold
outside-- feel the music 
like fingers drummed 
on the sides of
     you head

splash water in your
face--

walk into a girls bathroom
mirror

     stain 
teeth siren & 
     tell them this is
no your body 
this is a hotel room

without a telephone 

& i eat a red velvet
cupcake &

my friend asks if
i'm going back inside 
     & i say 
not yet
& he waits there too 
     & the walls
turn our heart
beats into a song
we don't know the words to--