Third grade:

Old Pearl Elementary School

the winters were warmer the summers cool

 

There was this girl named Brenda

I used to send her…

love notes.

‘Cause the sight of her put a big ole lump in my throat.

 

She had Hershey Bar skin and every now and then…

she’d let me hold her hand.

I felt so proud wanted to shout out loud

“Hey world, this is MY girlfriend!”

 

To hear her talk was to hear an angle sing.

I tore the butts off thirty fireflies just to make her a necklace

with a set of matching earrings.

 

Even to this day I can’t say why

our love must have been doomed from the start.

One day at recess I kissed her on the cheek she hit me in the eye

and broke my heart.

(there’s just no figuring women out)