duplex: me too?

‘The opposite of rape is understanding’  - Jericho Brown 

Ma lit the birthday cake’s thirteen candles: 

A year of  bad luck before you turn fourteen -

before I turned fourteen, boys pranced through forests. 

Then forests struck boys, choking on stubbled groins. 

And groins dashed, splintering bunk-beds' rafters. 

But I carved vows in the night’s rafters for Jesus. 

Jesus, the boys are touching themselves again. 

Will I go to hell if they touch 

me too? 

The boy named Joseph leapt on me like hell’s flames 

And the flames’ thieving feet danced into dawn - 

dawn of pupil-black suits and seeding reports, 

all while his seed bloomed in me: red cheeks, 

red-rose petals, thorned limbs. Ma sighed. They’ve set him 

free. I wished I was still only thirteen.