Before You Knew What it Meant by Alexi Milano

I swirled my feet in the bare, uncut

Florida grass at thirteen years old.

A sturdy turf with a thick blade, beckoning

a barefoot walk, so unlike the flesh, the real things.

The things that were almost never pretty. The things

that made you accustomed as you grew, to avoid

the eyes of strangers, that made you tear out

old diary pages, ashamed of who you thought

you once were, that wrote the definition of family

as a perplexity, of unclear mixed messages,

that caused age to come with victory

and forced you to learn

what’s made you grow.

The things that taught you

to let words go

and how to say

goodbye, before

you know

what it

meant.

Alexi Milano is a writer and artist born in New York, raised in Florida. She teaches her students how to push boundaries and entertain with their own pieces of writing.  She is co-editor at Varnish Journal.  Her poetry has appeared in Red Fez and In Between Hangovers.