I Think I Was Smarter Back Then

I used to get the grimiest notes in my locker—

Looked like they’d been carried around for a year in someone’s shoe.

They smelled of the sweat of a hundred camels

And a soured, cabbage roll.

I would look both ways down the hall

To see thirty boys all staring my way,

All waiting to see what kind of reaction

The anonymous letter would cause.

And somehow, even though I was young,

I had the presence of mind to know,

That someone, whether, it was a joke or not,

Had poured his heart out to me.

And so I would put the card to my nose

And take a whiff, as if it were roses,

And sigh a big, melodramatic sigh,

And hold the note to my breast.

Then waltz off to my next class,

Like Ginger Rogers with an imaginary Fred,

To try and let them teach me something worthwhile.

-jenn long