Boy-Betide Woebegone

I can feel stinging on my face, long before the blow to the back of my head has time to register. Bits of gravel embed themselves in my pre-pubescent skin, leaving streaks of red in snow that go unnoticed. I struggle to stand, thinking hands which throw snowballs that hard must also be the reason that you and your friends, our friends, always beat me at football; even though I know, deep down, that 3 against one does not make two teams.

I can't get up, I realize, and wonder if the hands helping me rise up might, actually, be burying me further down. Budding lepidopterist, you have me pinned, though your full weight fluctuates. Letting up, just enough, to let me breathe before you and your friends pretend that I'm the reason that my face is bleeding.

Stop hitting yourself. Stop hating yourself.

They pile snow that's really ice and sleet and bits of cigarette on top of me, and leave me in the street with all the other used things. Laughing as they walk away, they beckon you to them, and you sign your work with one last kick before you acquiesce, slipstream; leaving me split open to interpretation.

When we're in our teens, we will drink my weight in whisky, and I'll throw up on your father’s stairs from smoking my first joint.

When I get home from school, my mother's father tells me through her that you have a crush on me, and he is right.