I’ve never kissed a girl

in a way that counted:

truth-or-dare pretext

of preteen sleepovers,

 

summer camp makeout contests,

Captain Morgan and Coke

 

at college parties. I’ve lost count

of friends I’ve goaded

 

into leaving lipstick on me

like ink stains, like I’d pressed

 

my journal to my cheeks

and gone out dressed in secret feelings.

 

These days I keep old journals

by my bed and count the poems

 

penned to ex-boyfriends,

the terms coined in 2 a.m. epiphanies

 

about my sexuality:

bisexual heteroflexibleromantic;

 

floating in the realm of bisexuality

leaning towards men;

 

not not bisexual.

I find the entry describing

 

how I asked a friend to fuck me

on her living room floor

 

when we were sixteen

and pretending to be other people.

 

A journal three years later reads:

Lost my virginity tonight

 

to Andrew Jensen.

I didn’t touch my friend

 

the way she touched me,

my clothes woven

into our nest of blankets,

her devout grandfather

 

asleep in the next room.

I should’ve known that one day

 

I’d have counted myself

lucky for the practice.