You came into Ms. Ramsey\’s math class
A chestnut face full of braces
and vibrant colored beads in neat braids
you probably sat between your mother\’s legs the night before
anxious about your first day of school
Since your first day was everyone else\’s 68th
I did not understand why I stuttered when I spoke to you
Or why my stomach turned when you caught me staring
A crush is what they call it
A fitting name, for I was floored whenever you walked by,
leaving a faint trace of Cocoa Butter and Blue Magic hair grease
It was a math class but somehow we developed chemistry
I know that line was corny
But youth and love is the corniest thing of them all
It\’s throwing rocks at your window at midnight
It\’s standing on your front lawn with a boombox
playing \’In Your Eyes\’ by Peter Gabriel
It\’s \”But Daddy, I love him!\”
as Prince Neptune shakes his head at Ariel\’s naiveté
It\’s sharing a plate of spaghetti
and I give you the last meatball
It\’s moving outside of the boundaries of time
Riding through space on a magic carpet as I show you the world
for just 90 minutes in Ms. Ramsey\’s class
But love, like youth
is fleeting
One day, I don\’t stutter anymore
My stomach no longer ties itself in a million knots
We grew together and then grew apart
The chestnut face full of braces
does not giggle at my jokes
But her smile is somehow more radiant
Her pearly whites
contain every Lunchable snack I said you can have
and every walk home from school
and every night using the landline
despite the wrath of our parents
for \’running up the phone bill\’
Memories of our youth
Now embedded in our DNAs
The taste of first love is like
eating your favorite food for the first time
But who eats hamburgers forever?
One day you discover pizza, and then ice cream, and then
Well you get the point
Now when I smell Blue Magic hair grease
I smile and I think
of my you, my first crush