Every day a gift

The weight gathering all summer, the pool parties, the late night

driving, a year away from heading out like dandelion seeds.

What was I supposed to know as we quietly fumbled with

our bodies? Our ruin impending every time the floor creaked.

I made my escape after another boy slipped in

through the window, sure that he could be the man you wanted.

It was a season of updrafts, and I could spend mornings transfixed

by cumulus rising before my eyes, like the heat from the night before.

You always mistook a lack of assertiveness for a timid nature, as if

I were a chipmunk on a fence waiting for scraps to drop.

The laundry room had a French door from the bathroom, a little space I could hide

in and repeatedly test my weight hanging from the ceiling beam.

How could I be sure what I wanted? What bodies I wanted? I couldn’t

even tell you if I knew what a man was or how to own the room.

When I was outside, thunder always made me flinch, even afternoons

when I was lying in the open and watching the wall clouds begin to swirl.

The weight was a gift I couldn’t understand. The summer rolled on, and we never

solved each other. In that August heat, I found new ways to keep myself locked up.

To be honest, when I gave up on the laundry room and began planning

how far I could get away from here, it was a trivial thing to most.

Sometimes, the storms that blew through would leave great swathes wrecked in its wake.

I made my escape without fanfare and no one was the wiser.