It begins with girls wearing lipstick,
bras, shaving legs, talking about things––
boys’ things––like they know,
and worry collects like a small dark cloud
because you’ve never been kissed.
Then you learn to pluck eyebrows,
wear perfume, try on skirts and cleavage,
and girls who sounded like they knew,
now can draw diagrams, instruct
on how to use your tongue,

and the little cloud turns like a planet
because you may be the last virgin on earth.

Eventually you have sex, get a job,
rent your own apartment, relish sleeping naked,
invite men to relish in your nakedness,
and swap stories of such invites gone wrong
with girlfriends over $2 bottles of wine,
but those around you begin to marry,
and you’re made a bride’s maid five times over.

You don’t bother with the old saying though
because there are five different dresses
of alternating purple-lavender-lilac to purchase,
and it’s just a wedding, and as far as you can tell
anyone can have one. But what you can’t have,
what you refuse to give words to
feels like a black hole forming.

Then your best friend breaks up with her
live-in boyfriend, and confides
she keeps the art on the wall opposite her bed
perfectly centered hoping it will inch her
towards his side, and all you can think
is how you’ve always taken up the middle.