There is a girl in my class.

There is a girl in my poetry class who has a pink ribbon around her right ankle, and hair that I desperately want to reach out and touch.

Every class we take the same seats, I always sit behind her, and she has the same pencil. A Disney princess’s themed one. I want to tell her how I think the Disney princesses are some of the worst 21st century role models for young girls seeing as most of them are so anti-feminist and their lives have forever depended on the opposite sex, but I am always afraid she won’t take me seriously on this because I am a boy. Also, I’m far too shy.

Sometimes we read our poetry out to the rest of the class. Last time we did this, I wrote a series of haikus about this poetry class girl. She sits with hair light / Anti-feminist pencil / And I am in like. She wrote a sonnet about her dead goldfish, Frida, and the ceremony involved with flushing it down the toilet. I was thrilled at the faint descriptions of her home.

I haven’t spoken to her, really, but at one point I forgot my eraser and had no choice but to borrow hers. This proved how awkward I am. I stuttered before completing the obligatory ‘excuse me’, and stared dumbly at her face for a few seconds when she twisted around in her seat to face me and looked at me expectantly. I ended up getting the eraser, but she had to half guess exactly what I wanted. “Can you please borrow my… Pencil? Ruler? Sharpener?”

Usually she is the one to initiate a conversation. Usually it is about poetry. Every time she opens her mouth to talk to me I can’t help but smile a little, on the inside. Every time she opens her mouth to talk to me I have to fight down the urge to blurt out the list of things that I love about her.

I like poetry, but I love it even more knowing that she likes my writing. I am top of the class because of this. I write whenever I can, because of her. One day she corners me after class on my way to the bus stop. This is it, I think. I have to say something to her, or she will say something to me.

Instead she asks “So, were you thinking of changing any lines of your poem?”

I wonder why I was feeling so hopeful, but then she gives a smile like a slice of white fruit and a flash of teeth and I am just glad I can talk to her.

“…I’m thinking about it. I might,” Fuck, I’m brilliant at this conversation stuff. Captivate her with my slick words. I wish.

“Don’t,” She says, firmly but playfully. I know then that I won’t.
She turns to walk home, but turns back and faces me. She stretches and says “See you on Monday,”

“Okay, goodbye,”

All at once she is very close to me, and she is not saying goodbye. I can smell her hair. Lemons. She wears lip balm that makes me want to press my mouth against hers. All at once she hugs me tenderly. I am drowning in surprise.

I know what to do when someone hugs you, but when someone holds you? I am clueless. At what point does a hug become two people holding each other? My hands are on her back and my chin is on her head and she is so warm and I hope I am not dreaming. I don’t want to let go of her. Too quickly she pulls away and lets her fingers touch my wrist lightly, the naked one that I’m not covering with a flurry of wrist bands.

She says “I really hope that someday you will tell me what’s inside your heart,”

I want to say, You. I don’t think hearts have mirrors in them. I am ecstatic. I feel like jumping up and screaming with delight as she walks home.