Waif
i fell for stoners when i was thirteen
stoner boy's eyes glowed aquamarine electric blue from across the baseball field to the bleachers

i was this lost, insignificant little waif
minus my golden cradle and stripped of my crown, dropped onto the Hialeah wasteland clutching my drawings &
a spiky black choker,
sans poetry or any of the trimmings that would define me later
back then, i left that up to the stoner boys

i'd take it so strongly to heart when he was irritated.
moody.
had i done something wrong?
upset his Cancer moon child intuition?

i morphed into them even as they would switch from retarded laughter to hatred within minutes & forget everything
stumbling through swampy pools of denial i would stalk after the boys, faking my interest in their guitars and their music, losing myself in the rhythm of their lazy, droning voices

he sang me obscenities, pulled my hair, stole my sketches, shoved my face in his crotch.
i would let him touch me up my... legs... drifting into euphoria
never could have fathomed the side effects
he could have cared less

little thirteen year old me, always pretending to be someone other than me, a shattered vision in the bathroom mirror,
under the sleepy glare of the dim lights i would scratch at the smoke mask suffocating me
naive and insecure little thirteen year old me

though even now...
the scars of my stupidity calming me on the loneliest nights,
memories of a stoner boy long lost