Tolstoy Tuesday: Wednesday Night Edition

All grown up

When we were children
you would borrow my journal
and write love poems about other girls in the margins.
I said You should get your own
and you scoffed:
Journals are for needy people.

That summer you set yourself on fire
and declared the people who looked at you
to be pathetic voyeurs.

I smelled your burning flesh
and couldn't help but smile:
finally, your actions trumped
your words.

There are those of us
who take comfort in spreading
the shit and shame
we scoop from our own guts

and those of us who would,
but feel a tug toward kindness instead.

All grown up,
you'd like to claim yourself
among the latter,

but the truth is
you're still a child
scribbling furiously in the margins
of a book you say
you're too smart to read,
because the lines
and all their implications
scare your soul.