Curls

In English class,

my fingers found your curls

soft,

springy,

unfairly beautiful.

I told you it wasn’t right

for a boy to have better curls than me.

You laughed,

and suddenly the room

felt friendly.

We kept circling each other there

glances,

half-grins,

an almost-friendship

that thought it had time.

You wrote in my yearbook,

we should hang out sometime.

We smiled about it.

We didn’t.

Still, I like that girl

the one who reached out first,

who joked when she was nervous,

who didn’t yet know

how many ways touch

can mean maybe.

The classroom is gone.

So is the almost.

But the lightness stayed.

It’s part of how I love.

Reviews

[Randall]

I like, I may even love this one. It shows how naive you were. And why is it always English class? Never History, Chemistry, or Algebra. Could it be that the English class holds our emotions of poems spoken and the readings of Shakespeare? What you have written shows the path taken to become the Woman that you are.
Randall...

[Curly Grace]

well i read yours i believe, and I remember that little morsel stuck there in a time I almost forgot. Interesting to see how that insight from others impacts what we feel.

[Curly Grace]

i still have my yearbooks. this house 50 years of our family's life. i Bought my grandmother's house. i took care of her before she passed. it's crazy the stuff that is here.

[Randall]

I, too, have my yearbooks on the shelf beside me. It is my history to look at every once in a while and bring up feelings that sometimes seem forgotten. When you grow old, you will find you have more history than future. Just a fact of life. It's not a downer. You just make the future count in places where your history missed.

Randall...

[Brandon Houser]

This is a lovely bittersweet homage to anyone you felt that pull to when you were young and wanted to love but didn't know how.

[Fabian G. Franklin]

This is so beautiful. I mean the tenderness surviving amid the chaos. But fragile things can be stronger than they seem; a blade of grass pushing through concrete or a dragonfly crossing an ocean on paper thin wings. And some things stick with us if we get a chance to admire them early on in life; things like honor, integrity, loyalty, beauty and honesty. I've seen a single ray of sunshine illuminate a darkened room. I believe we should always strive to leave our inner candles lit.

[Curly Grace]

Thank you, Fabian.
I’m glad the quiet light in this piece reached you.