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I saved your life as we waited at the bus stop

for the fat yellow 7:45

They wanted to break your bones with textbooks

and insults to your Mormon father and faith

It was my first day of fourth grade

and my strength burgeoned on the heads of your enemies

I should have known not to trust a girl

who braids were pulled too tightly at her scalp

whose smile was black and sticky like the tar

freshly lain on our road

We were bosom friends

 

You visited me in college and scoffed

at the naked women flailing their legs

on my neighbor's wall

You didn't register the holes I was burning

through your nutmeg pigtails

I wanted to scrape you off my shoe

 

And when you married the brother

of your first kiss (he cheated on your best friend

remember?) you didn't invite me

to the Mormon temple

where you sealed your hopes in his one-track stare

 

Irony burns like hell's gates

 

I was the maid of honor

But you crucified me beside the Jesus of your church

and forgot to wrap our childhood play dates

in burial shrouds