• Pros and Cons

    When the boys from fifth period
    American history whispered ice
    princess     as if I couldn’t hear
    and you cracked your one-sided
    smile—like pouring them a glass
    of I know something you don’t—
    I wanted to take my pencil
    and put it through your laughing eye
    until it popped that festering portion
    of the brain that made you think
    you knew anything at all.

    But what I really did
    was take the cherry chapstick
    sitting on your desk, and slow
    as day-old honey ran
    it along my parted lips
    until they were wet and red
    and if the boys bit their cheeks
    and called me whore, that was okay,
    because when I dropped the chapstick
    next to your clenched fists, you realized
    the only private thing you knew
    was what you’d never know.