Call a                          doctor/ plumber/ priest
My heart is               broken/ leaking/ deceased
My life is                   worthless/ so much better/ over
I'm going to              **** myself/ tell your wife/ Dover
How could you         leave me/ not know/ lie?
I hope you                return my stuff/ come back/ die
I'll never                   forget you/ forgive you/ go away
I need                        closure/ a DNA test/ to tell you I'm gay
Your                           face/ crotch/ top of your back
Is                                so beautiful/ lumpy/ unusually slack
Your                           ex/ mother/ best friend from school
Always made me      great coffee/ feel inadequate/ drool
I will                           miss you/ **** you/ stalk you forever
That way we can      be friends/ get away with it/ be together
I'm sorry                   you did this/ I did this /we failed
I promise to               pay you/ dye it back/ get you bailed
Please don't               leave me/ show the Polaroids/ write or call

(*delete as appropriate, just delete it all.....)

She called him her cherry
because of his bright cheeks-
               and he called her his daylily
                              (she wasn't sure why,
               but she liked it)

               He was patient and protective
               and liked the way her socks never matched
                              and the way she ate muffins (upside-down)

                              She was impatient and prideful
                              but she liked the way he read (eyebrows furrowed furiously)
               and his squinting, laughing eyes.

They were always having small fights
and once she heard her pride say-
"I'll never talk to you again."
               she never thought his eyes could look so sad
               when he slowly nodded at her
she wanted to scream.

Her life continued as years passed
and she met a boy she grew to love
               but who never quite understood
               why she ate muffins the way she did.

One day, as she was packing
               preparing to move across the country
she found a dried, wilted daylily
               and she cried herself to sleep that night, hating herself
                              wondering if he ever felt the same of cherries.

Take my hand, friend
just for a sec-
let's leave this ****** land of
SATs, PSATs, APs,
and college admission essays and guidance counselors
and homework and pop quizzes and exams and whatever else-

                                          behind.

Let's be two again.

Let's make Pringle-chip-duck faces
and grin with orange peel smiles-
I'll paint my nails yellow and we'll read Dr. Seuss with British accents
in the dimming light of the old
falling-down fort of pillows and blankets (that's almost too small for us)

Let's pretend
              Let's pretend
                            Let's pretend

That we've never seen the glowing screen of
televisions, computers, IPods,
that we haven't spent weeks wearing down our thumbs on text messages.
              Let's forget fights over boys that weren't even all that hot.

Let's sit in my yard and eat raw cookie dough behind my momma's back
And make too-sweet fresh lemonade, and blow dandelions
(into other neighbor's yards, of course)
Spray garden hoses at each other
and laugh and scream and giggle and make mud-pies.
Let's make twenty different secret handshakes,
Eat wild raspberries and hide sticky fingers
And pinky promise- again and again- BFFs forever.

Let's lose ourselves in the bliss of childhood
just one more time- please.

                            Just in case Peter Pan decides to visit.