Graffiti

He took me on a cigarette run to the train tracks
in his not-girlfriend’s car.
I slipped past the growth he trampled
toward the underbelly of the bridge.
He asked me if I was wearing shorts
and I wasn’t.

From the struts, he hurled rocks like punctuation
to a breathless, incessant combustion.
—“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
But I guess that makes me a hypocrite.

They echoed like gunfire
across graffiti-covered walls,
charting out adolescence,
and ricocheting off my ribs.

When I put my arm around him,
he felt like a landmine.
He was the train that rumbled by
and he said we were lucky it was on the other side.
Were we?

When I saw his eyes like
orphanages—I wanted to kiss him.
I didn’t.
We just sat there and waited for another train.