It's your second semester, freshmen year
and you're still speaking to your ex boy
in jagged adjectiveless conversations
you give reports

it's your second semester
and you are sexually liberated
you are free
a boy asks you to stay the night
so you count your sheep on half his pillow
and your legs tingle
and flee when you realize you won't sleep

you have never slept next to someone you didn't love
you have never been kissed so passively or so recklessly

it's freshmen year
you learn your limits
you drink too much
you learn about freedom
and how in freedom you can do so much wrong
to hurt so many people in more ways than you ever knew
you are so powerful and new
you are incredible and dangerous and small

it's March
you are increasingly feeling like not enough
like you have just enough time to make things happen
but you're getting to your last leg
you can't fathom how young you are

it's second semester freshmen year
you are eighteen
this whole thing
you will do again at least three more times
and your knees hurt already
and your skin is dry and cracking
you know too much
you don't know what it means to know