I’m not soft and waiting.
I’m ripe, fresh, full
of potential and even if I hang,
I hit the ground running
the tough, fuzzy skin of peaches,
broken then split into static
by you and your gratuitous jaw.
If you asked me how I liked it
at 15, I would’ve said rough
because that’s what I saw on TV.
If you ask me now I couldn’t answer,
but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t try.
I bet I could find it under the need
to let you have it your way and make you
happy. Tear off pieces of me
all you want, but this second skin
slips on last second, like the backward
abstract of a snake, since I have learned
how hard you bite down when I let you win.
But all this goes with the image of fruit,
fruit stems from flowers, and I remember
from before I was 15 and I didn’t like it at all.