"When our breasts arrivedas a kind of currency, we’d tugour camisoles low, useour newfangled..."

“When our breasts arrived

as a kind of currency, we’d tug

our camisoles low, use

our newfangled bodies to haggle

with the ice cream man. The winner

was the girl who received her chocolate cone

for free, who sucked on candy cigarettes

the same way she wore a training bra.

That summer my pockets grew forests

of hand-tied maraschino cherry stems:

tampered evidence that I might one day be worthy

of kissing. In exchange for rides

on the handlebars of their bikes,

we’d let the boys bite

the beads off our candy

necklaces until the chokers

resembled punched out teeth.

From their slobber, blue and violet

stained my throat where the sweetness

had once been, so I suppose,

Your Honor, I was preparing

for him.”

- Megan Falley, “Beginning in an Ice Cream Truck and Ending in a Court Room” (via fleurishes)