Before I read my pages I could think
I knew, but now I see it was the year
my mother had us paint the kitchen pink,
and neighbors moved back in, when I appear
determined to take off detested weight,
lambasting me as fat when I was fine.
Events I recollected from grade 8
turn out to be the truth about grade 9.

Remembering pre-empted TV shows,
the hand-sewn clothes, the crafts of styrofoam,
my lust for boys, disclosive tongue and heart…
I see a virgin warping as she grows,
instructed and protected in her home.
I watch dysfunction dawn with menses’ start.