72 ways to tell if your crush likes you
Always sent me in the worst preteen spirals
Because I wasn’t exactly sure how to casually check to see
If his pupils would dilate during our conversations
And, after a few seconds of my intense evaluation, he’d stop
And ask if he had food stuck in his teeth
And, if so, then I should be a pal and tell him
Because he wanted to impress
My best friend when she walked into the room.

That summer you two held an-end-of-the-year bonfire,
Where everyone brought their troubled old exams,
Bradburying their barely year old textbooks,
While toasting marshmallow s’mores atop the education protest.

My contribution was something more of a retribution,
Because I brought the poppiest, peppiest, most duplicitous,
Beauty magazine I owned
      [It made me feel ugly and unwanted,
       Judged me by my choice in mascara,
       And set me up for heartbreak all too young].
As I watched it catch fire and morph into molten,
I couldn’t help and laugh,
Relief flooded through my veins when I saw that,
Even when the deemed beautiful is destroyed,
It crumbled down to the same unidentifiable inked gray,
Earth to earth,
Ashes to ashes,
Dust to dust.