I have a boyfriend
I shout to myself,
Pinching my upper thigh
And blinking away from
The sight of them.

She giggles and I notice
Her laugh is lopsided
And she's too short
To be that loud.
Her shoulders are too far forward
And even I notice the
Gross stain on her
Upper left canine
Between her braces
That are bright, neon green.

She's my best friend.

I don't mean to think of her in that way,
I love her like a sister.
But it pops into the front of my brain
When I see them together.

I don't even like him
In that way
Anymore.
I have a boyfriend,*
And all he was
Was a whispered fifth grade crush.
That's what I tell myself.

He looks at her like
She's a million bucks.

Her crooked teeth
Earn her six cents,
In my opinion.

I take it back within a second,
But the thought was still there.

Jealousy makes me into a monster.

My heart goes numb
And my stomach turns sour
When it becomes apparent
That best male actor
Has been won by a man
With an alliterative name
And I still have
The same number of
Oscars
As Leonardo DiCaprio

He came to my house
Wearing his dark jacket and
Cold fingers
With no prior notice.

The doorbell echoed at
Nine oh six
And my mom said she'd get it.

I was watching Netflix
And shoveling semi-melty
Ice cream into my mouth.

He said hi to my mom
And he rushed up the stairs
Into my laundry-flooded bedroom

He wrapped his arms around me
So tight that I wasn't keen to let go.

He smelled like bitter outside
And broken trees
And choking regret.

I smelled like
Fake roses
And ***** pajamas
That were freshly cried into.

My shirt sleeves were wet.

When he kissed me,
I tasted like
The aftermath of
Black cherries
And sad music.

He tasted like love.

I shattered today.

Shards of love
And splashes of blood
Scattered to the tips of
My fingers
And
Toes.

We were in Starbucks
And I drank coffee
And you didn't
And seven months of
Surprise kisses
And
24/7 text messages
Ended abruptly
Like a cliff.

The funny thing is,
I broke up with you.
It was still me
Who spent the last hour
Listening to our song
And bleeding emotion
Riding on tears
Into the sock monkey
That I named after you
Because I loved the middle name
Ryan.

You were over it,
And I was not.
You showed up
With the bite of coffee
Crawling up your nose
Expecting to
Break
Up
With
Me.

I'm not exactly happy that we think alike anymore.

They sit in their
Wide neon cocoons,
Cozy and warm
With hot air
Dribbling out of vents
And swirling around their bodies.

A thin sheet of metal protects them from
Nine degree weather
And bone-freezing winds
And sheets of shivering ice.

And yet,
Every day at
Exactly
Six twenty-four in the morning
They come around
Like wide neon caterpillers
And slink toward where I stand,
Legs frozen to concrete.

Doors open,
Burning cold air rushes in
And rubs against them,
But they wait and smile
As I climb three tall stairs
And greet them,
Welcoming the nice hug of
Warmth
And
Coziness
And
Comfort
And love.

They love me,
A stranger.
They love me enough to
Rescue me from
Becoming an ice sculpture.

So I fumble with
The Thank You in my pocket
And ****** it toward them
In my haste.

It is enough for them.

I glare at it
During last period,
Jumping too high
But not high enough
To reach the swinging rope.

I'm in history,
And some glazed-over teacher
Is pointing at the
Chalkboard which has
Tiny scratches that look like words
Scribbled all over.

But I don't look at my notes,
Because my neck is craning
Too far back
To look at the rope
That is
My two and a half hours of freedom.

A single note is released into the halls
And the students chace it
And I leap into the air
Because the rope
Is reachable
And I grab it.

I begin to climb.

I sit by you on the
Dirt-dusted tile floor
Outside the gym
And we work on algebra
Or english if it's a good day.

And don't get me wrong,
I hate the familiar stench of homework
As much as
The next
Hunchbacked highschooler.
The rope stings my hands
While I climb.
You numb the burn.

But I have practice
And the rope is easy to climb
And I reach the top
In two and a half hours
And you get into
The yellow sardine can
That goes to your neighborhood.

And all of my muscles ache when you go.

I can't fall asleep
On those nights
When I
Don't even know
If you'll be here
When I wake up.

Those nights
Are
All nights.