a curious, but beautiful oddity

put a poem up on here
and then deleted it—
it makes me feel very exposed, and certainly like i’m oversharing.
i’m going repost and to do it anyway, and challenge myself to post my work,
conversation and feedback is always welcome.

/questions for my sister’s ex-boyfriend’s boxers:/

were you the piece she held on to?
tattered, filled with memories of a man-
a creature-
a beast at best!
an addict-
an abuser-
but you, were you a shard of the seducer?

do you know how you shred at the waistband?
from the first time i wore you
you’ve ripped more and more
in spite of the fact my size stretched you the least
i’m the smallest…
the runt…
my feet too small and delicate to fit in her basketball shoes…

i slipped you on
the night she finished moving into her new house
you were thrown at me
i forgot pajamas
on purpose
as always
because there is something so comforting
in wrapping up in the colors, shapes, and smells
of someone close

did you end up in my hands because of my persistence?
i did not know your history
aside from that you belonged to the him
the him we did not talk about anymore

boxers.
my seventh-grade-body
stretched into a chance for masculinity
with the damp unfolding wings
of something coming into itself
tattoo designs
bleached and faded
ripped and worn
do you know how you opened doors
to a the baby butch who
still switched into baggier pants in the locker room before class
as to not disappoint the mother who begged to see
a princess in pink?

did you end up
in my backpack
rolled, a secret, safe in the back of my dresser drawer
to be walked around in
with loose jeans on satudays
when no one else was home

not as the gift i see you now
but as a piece she was trying to forget?
did he- the monster- leave you as a message
in a moment of clarity
as an act of innocent regret
for the way his affected blood controlled him
the way i would grow to leave sweatshirts with lovers (remember
how i kept you warm?)
and like breadcrumbs, scatter a bracelet by a bedstand, (someday you’ll
wear it, when i’m hundreds of miles away, and pretend it was yours)
leave a date borrowing my jacket (use it as an excuse to call me)
and drape my flannel off my shoulders over
the curled up curves of a love caught dizzy
in the soft sleep that only comes after good sex
so that i would be just
that much trickier for her
to abandon?

boxers.if i knew you would be on
the short list of things i have
left of my sister,
i probably would have
done nothing differently.

but can you speak for a time (i am now nearly as old as she was then)
when we lived days that i now see as countdown numbers?
let me go back to when thirteen felt like ‘grown up’- so long as she’d give me the privilege to finish her beer-
and sleep on the unfurnished floor of the new beginning
she deserved
but never got.

c.Angela L. 2012