Nineteen

I remember how it was
to be stupid-young, so pretty and so
new to it, drunk on power like
a thirteen year old on strawberry wine,
my breasts my hair my navel
tarted out in ten-dollar tanktops
and thirty-dollar shoes. I threw myself at
the world, expecting it to catch me,
a million hands opening to receive
my bounty.

The closest practice I had for it was
when I was ten and had just learned
about mosquitoes - the way they follow
carbon monoxide back to the source, the way
that they can track you from miles away. I went
into my bedroom, knelt at the screen and
breathed out gently, watching with avid
glee the frantic swarming that
followed.