The first bitter taste

She told her mom, so quickly, 'No,

I didn't see where that cookie went,'

and her eyes, they shifted low,

a flicker, a new, strange element.

And I knew it then, that raw, wet fear,

the tongue thick, a metal taste,

when I said, 'Nothing happened here,'

my voice too fast, too much in haste.

Not for me, not for my own skin,

but for him, who stood so small,

and the world went quiet, a paper-thin

wall I built, to watch him fall

into safety, while something in me cracked,

a hairline break, then sealed itself shut.

My first lie, a fact.

It never really leaves the gut.