To Myself, With Love

Dearest sixteen, 

the runners are out tonight 

and the pencil you placed between 

your bedroom window and the sill

will tremble when you clamber after them. 

you will think that the heartbeat in your throat 

is not fear.

you will sprint 

and taste the Jack on his teeth all at once; 

you will guzzle down the dizziness

of seeing his cheekbones carved out in smoke.

at least for a few years

whilst future tenses are still fog beams 

too fragile to weave through your certainty. 

there are words for the burn blooming in your chest 

and the ache that lines the bottom of your belly

restless and lusting to tear out of uniform 

and feel the ink of the sky. 

you will discover them as weapons

to make your mother weep;

and years will pass by on the salt tracks coating her face 

before the pencil-propped window creaks open. 

And I? I lie in wait,

Peering from the fog beams at your midnight sprints. 

Words for those nebulous things I thought I could never forget 

Are five years ago

Blooming in your belly-ache lust. 

I know you will learn, not too late,

That he and the runners 

Were not the pulse quickening in your throat. 

I am telling you just in case.