• Lies My High School Poetry Teacher Told Me
• Boy
• How It Begins
• Keeping Roses
• First Orgasm
• Something She Has No Words For

First Orgasm

Seventh grade gym class,
you are twenty feet
above the waxed floor
almost at the top
with the rope
rubbing your hard-on
through the cotton
of your gym shorts
so you can’t be sure
which is better
the feelings above
or below
until the sudden
liquid shudder
catches your breath
and the rope tears
through your grip
burning across your palm
and you can’t hold on
to the rope,
to the warmth in your groin,
to the little deaths
you were dangling above
with such delicate hands.