Manic - A Book of Poetry

First Love

First Love

Today I admitted to myself that I love you. 

That I have loved you.  Toy Story lunchbox packed with carrots

because your parents were vegetarians while mine ate pizza every Friday.

Rushing to the class list praying, dreaming I would be able to breathe

your air, grade your paper, work up the courage to place a red heart

next to the wrong answer.  I never did. 

Today I admitted to myself that I stalked you. 

Shameless, fearless, I adore the inventor of Facebook.   Stare at family

portraits turned skinny girl hanging on your arm.  Imagine myself, status

in a relationship with the brown eyed boy who wore his baseball hats

backwards and bit the ends of his pencils.  I tried to be that girl, even

attempting to lose ten pounds.  I never could.

Today I admitted to myself that I was never pretty

enough for you.  I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed until

I bled and was raw but my nose is too large and teeth too crooked

and skin too blemished for you to even brush my shoulder in the hallway. 

I wear glasses, your girlfriend wear heels.  All of them, I’ve checked. 

Compulsively trying to shove my heel into glass slippers.  They never fit.

Today I admitted to myself that after three years, five months, six days,

nine hours, thirteen minutes, and forty five seconds that after we graduated

you got married.  Married before I’d even had a conversation with you. Years

wasted scheming of ways to sit behind you in history.  Move my locker closer

to yours.  Scribbling your name in notebooks, carving in into my mind. I hope

the self-inflicted wounds of infatuation heal.  They never will.