It didn’t really hit me
not until I was halfway home
That maybe
Just maybe
I shouldn’t have said that.
I turned up the radio
Rolled down the windows
And tried to blast the words
out of my head.
Nothing.
“I like your hair.”
Was the only thing
Set on repeat
Said to a guy I knew
Maybe two years ago
Latin class, sophmore year
Latin II, with the roman numerals
As if that could make our shabby accents
Any more believable.
More believable
Than me, sitting red faced,
Screaming Pink
to get away from my instinctual propriety.
It’s the kind of thing that
breaks people
Micromanaging the past
After sliding aimlessly into the present.
It doesn’t make sense!
Exhibit A:
Headliner
Single girl, no longer jailbait
Embarrassed by sincerely
Meaningless remark
Crashes car into transformer.
Transformer retaliates.
No, it didn’t
mean anything.
Just that he looked different
Just that she didn’t recognize him.
But what if,
this
But what if
that
But what if (- !)
I couldn’t
For the life of me
figure out
Why
I was so embarrassed
to be talking to a guy
I didn’t even like.
Not
like
that.
But what if,
I
But what if
something
But what if
He thought I had
ulterior motives?
But what if he thought I was flirting?
(Like anyone would make that mistake)
But what if
trying to find every possible outcome
was like wearing glasses made of telescope lenses
the vision
too distorted to fix
the problem.
I tried to make sense
of the values
societies places on romance
and I didn’t
even get the
lousy t-shirt.
Just a headache.
Maybe another day.