How to write about it in a way
others want? The truth is your hands

must have been stronger,
or I couldn’t find mine.

Nobody wants to hear the no
even from a poem about no’s.

Instead, a swarm of bees
gathering in my mouth.

I stayed too long. I know
because your roommate told me

once the bong shattered,
the cloudy water flooding

the room. He taught me
proper protocol: once you fuck

or get fucked, leave. Flinching thing
that I was, I didn’t realize how far

I needed to run, how long
it would take to color in my night,

make it shine for the world like glass
or just as sharp, and blue.