Kimberly Young

Blue Balls, Revised
I wanted my first time to be like that scene in Don’t Look Back
when Dylan plays ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’
and Donavan just looks at him. But I’d have to
revise the summer I turned thirteen.
In the new version, there’s a circle of boys.
My guy’s a firecracker, a bet, a smack. He’s my
liquor cabinet. My close smell.
A place my legs get to wrap.
In the new version, I won’t chicken out.
I won’t shave my head, puke off my skateboard,
watch Saturday Night Live on acid.
I didn’t want to be a girl anymore.
Not after I did let him roll me over,
months later, and just a little blood. I’d cut what he said
to his friends about my little cup, my bed, me never speaking.
Twenty years later I still think sex
is something tough, a breaking.
So in this version, I get to be Dylan. I get to drop
into an empty pool—the sound of my skateboard,
my can of Michelob, and I’m not afraid.