There was a kid at Texas Tech in 1985.

He had a certain sense of things.

He would buy dress shirts at the Salvation Army,

And take a seam ripper to the collar.

He'd remove the pointed ends 

And turn the whole thing down and re-stitch it,

Creating a standup look that was uniquely his own.

And sometimes, he would find an old bicycle,

An old 1950's Schwinn, and fix it up and paint it.

He had one he rode around,

And he would sell them to his friends.

I bought one for $30 dollars

And became part of the throw-back brigade

Of that era, that railed against 

The thin, sleek, hi-Tech 10 speeds 

That prevailed in that day.

He was in love with a girl in the dorm that I stayed in.

She was from Houston,

And had pale, olive skin,

And jet black hair cut into a 'bob."

Her dark eyes would flutter,

But always down,

And she was not in love with him.

She wanted to be, but couldn't.

And all of us girls wanted him to be in love with us,

The way he was in love with her.

We were all so sweet to him

When she would leave him sitting alone in the cafeteria.

Finally one of the other girls

Convinced him to try his love out on her,

But we all knew it couldn't last.

He couldn't seem to look at her 

The way he had the other girl.

I took my seam ripper

And ripped out the stitches of the high-back collar

I had just made on one of my shirts,

And carefully sewed the pointed ends back on.

-jenn