escalation

Don't talk to a boy because talking will lead to sitting beside him on a couch. This will lead to an arm around your shoulder which will lead to the inhalation of your perfumed hair. One thing leads to another is the warning they give to you. You have been warned and yet you sit with a boy and you are anticipating the escalation before it has begun. Do not touch or you will kiss. Do not kiss or you will make love. And so talking opens up the possibility of his penis. Sitting foreshadows the possibility that you might shift slightly on the couch and throw your leg over his lap and it would be done in a second, this entering into something.

Potential tristes, each and every conversation. Your vagina settling onto his penis at the warm heart of every interaction. You are filled by the potential to be filled.

In the playground they draw a line across the asphalt. Girls on one side. Boys on the other. And they meet at the line to learn games that involve clapping hands. If it weren't for the line they would remain coyly in their segregated groups. It is the warning that drives them to link fingers. It is the banning of books leads to more reading.