sex education

First of all, there was no banana, and we didn’t touch any condoms.
The gym teachers’ sweat pants and Nike shoes paced the classroom,
trying to figure out the easiest way to say penis, ejaculate, orgasm.
We laugh because we’re babies in grade 10, growing up at Jane & Finch.

We were handed out pamphlets: the symptoms of herpes
with blurry pictures printed from the library computers.
Hours spent dissecting the dangers of baby-making, the most effective
means of protection; like maybe we could just watch TV instead.

No talk of boys liking boys or girls liking girls.
Rushed out with our pamphlets, inky diagrams staining our fingers,
fingers that would one day touch skin, fingers that didn’t know better,
but we knew to watch out for cold sores.

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