The first time I saw porn was less confusing than the first time I felt love
At that age, my lips would curl as I tried to remember the lyrics to the Spongebob theme song

I would find peace with myself when I had Barbie Dolls to play with rather than G.I. Joes

When I was grounded, I slept all day in my room
When I was older and got grounded, my punishment would be not to sleep

Now that i’ve felt love, I miss the days when porn seemed like a biology lesson

My lips curl as I struggle to tell the therapist about all the dead innocence locked away in my heart
Now, I find peace with myself when I have a pen in my hand rather than a football or a balled up fist

Sleep is like a lover I want to embrace into the late noon hours
Soaking it’s shoulder sleeve with all of my sorrow

Playing dress up as a kid, my cousin and I would fight over who would get to be the fairy princess
That was before I was beaten into an angry, fearful boy who wished femininity was accepted in males all because I was caught reciting cheerleading songs that I learned from my dolls

I still wish I could’ve tried on Mom’s high heels and marveled at the use of bras and tampons
But, like the game where we try keeping the balloon from touching the ground because the floor was lava
Like that game… I struggle to stay airborne without stooping too low
I try to not let the childhood innocence fade from sight
I visit the monkey bars and curl my fingertips around the old steel to feel the familiar touch of peanut butter and gum
But all I feel are names of young lovers!
Etched in the metal from a relationship that probably never lasted

Growing up on the reservation has taught me a lot
The biggest lesson I learned, was that people grow up fast
By the time I was 13, I was already grown

Don’t grow up so fast that you lose sight of what matters
Don’t grow up so fast that candy cigarettes get addictive
It takes more and more bottle caps filled with shots of pepsi or bug juice to give you the same sugar rush that it use to

When apple juice gets a bitter taste and you wake up nauseous, feeling a migraine, and smelling like candy cigarettes
When playing house becomes working from nine to five trying to provide water for tea time and mud for when you serve pie
When cops and robbers has a penalty of life in prison and a little boy walking home from school ends up dead on the sidewalk
All because you drank too much apple juice before getting behind the wheel of your plastic fisher-price