before you are grown

before you are grown
or now, in the interim of
growing and final
there are two things I want
you to know
one that every heart beats
faster in love because
once you love something dearly
it is nearly impossible to retain it
the seconds blur in keeping
and two
to say no.

when I was a child I wanted to know how to do
makeup and how to stand up to pee
like the boys in the corner of the little league dugout
Only these
but neither would serve me
as it turns out
in adulthood

By the time I was seventeen my heart was racing
with all the lost loved and unrequited relationships of my youthful fantasy
time falling between my fingertips like
sand that summer in the Gulf
I found hermit crabs and kept them
overnight
but by morning had only shells
and a family of well fed racoons
watching with blindfolded laughlines

everything you love will leave you
it is
the only truth
on its own or by happenstance which…