Everyone is doing it.

You think,
I know everyone was doing it
but me.

Leslie with braces
was doing it.
Nikki did it with a boy she met
in detention called Christian.
Mara said,
Andrew’s cock hangs
pointing half way down her
inner thigh

You think,
Gross.
Or maybe it’s hot.
You aren’t sure.

At home,
you practice
looking sexy,
dropping your strap
“carelessly,”
grazing your own skin,
pouting your lips.

From Teen Vogue,
you ordered a
“How to Seduce Boys” pamphlet.

The number one rule was
“Play hard to get.”

“Give him your number.
When he calls,
don’t pick up.
Tell him you were out of town.
You will always be out of town.
Flirt shamelessly with all his friends.”

You do it,
imagining yourself as
the woman you want to become
who is sleek and beautiful and sexy and thin,
large breasts and lush lips
whose voice purrs in men’s dreams.
You want to be the woman he falls asleep to while loving
the woman he wakes up next to.
Wishing for you.

Your mother
calls you and your sisters for the “talk.”
In front of her was the Korean Times.

China is overpopulated.
She said pointing at the headline.
Sex is for reproduction.
Since China is overpopulated,
just adopt from China.

No one ever tells you what it’ll be like.

You learned
with your first.

You kiss and explore
the other,
gliding between lips
over tongues.
Teach the other
when to breathe
when to press in closer.

You pressed and pressed
danced your lips
hips hands pressed

and wondered how you fit so perfectly
and how it felt like a volcano
or dew drops

unhooked and unzipped
and clothes fluttered passed
like moths from summer porch lights.

What has this to do with love?

How a stranger’s gaze becomes
flattering and repulsive at once
or how wet you get when some guy
you should have let go long ago
says I love you.

You cross the lines,
blur the obvious
blend the lines of normal abnormal
disguise yourself as virgin whore
demure, then lie with everyone you see
and wonder
how you got so confused…

He conducts symphony
in your belly.
You lie close.
It is just his eyes you feel,
how they set ablaze the soil of your skin
how no one tells you it’s ok.
or not ok

How your belly swells.

By then,
your father is no longer your father.
Your mother does not look at you.
You’re sent away to a distant relative’s,

nine months later
returning
with your baby who you must name
Little Sister.