Reflections on Losing One's Virginity
There is a story my mother does not tell me.
Once,
We had just watched this movie,
And she had started crying.
She told my sister and me
About the man who
Broke her heart.
A couple of times,
I heard about a man whose
Heart she
Broke.
She does not tell us everything.
It's so cold.
Freezing, really.
It is just the cold,
The biting air,
That is causing my body to
Shake
And shake.
I never really understood the phrase
"knees giving way."
Now I hold onto whatever's nearby
To stand up.
At one point,
I was 8 or 9 or 10,
My dad mentioned he played
The clarinet
When he was 14.
I looked at him differently,
Thinking, I don't really know about his life
At all.
Then I started thinking,
What will I not tell my children?
I cry and I call and I talk and I sleep,
Hard,
As hard as I can,
Because I know that the next morning
Will bring questions
And looks
And explanations.
There are now two types of people –
Those who I will have to tell
And those who I will hide it from.
It's not obvious,
I guess
(not like that time he left that hickey
On my neck
And I had awkward conversations
For a week).
Maybe somehow I'll look different.
(and do I want to?)
My mother is not
Beautiful
When she cries.
I get it from her.
The Irish in our faces
The hyperventilating breaths
The blotchiness
The dampness
The swimming turquoise eyes.
She will never tell me everything
just like I will not tell my children
About this
About the pain
And the way your body felt on top of mine
(did it hurt where my fingernails dug into you?
Am I horrible to wish that it did?)
Or the way we avoided each other's eyes
And how we stopped
As I tried not to cry
And you tried not to hold me.
I will not tell them that
You didn't call.
I will not tell
Because I already know
That you won't either.