High School

Now it is third period, chemistry. Eugene is zoning out, watching Claire at her lab station on the other side of the room. Claire is close to the front, where students periodically go to sharpen their pencils or to check the list of chemical compounds.

Eugene doesn't care about the assigned experiment that he's supposed to be completing, he'd rather experiment with the sweet sting of young love's lingering side glance, of it's nervous laugh...

He is scribbling a love letter to Claire that he will never give her.

She's sitting in the front of the room, her feet crossed under her desk, she's resting her cheek on her hand. Who cares about the chemistry of an atom, all I care about is the chemistry of her and me. Teacher says positively and negatively charged atoms attract each other in a nonpolar covalent bond. Maybe that means she could love me back. I cant stand the nonsense going on around me; people mixing chemicals, creating sparks from electric wall sockets on a dare, the smokey room, the emergency water buckets and lunch sacks and backpacks and the zoo of people between her and me. I want to walk to the pencil sharpener so I can talk to her. I want to sharpen my pencil until it breaks again just so I can linger next to her longer. Maybe then her positive atoms would be close enough to my negative atoms to feel that attraction, that pull, and we could be together in the strongest chemical bond...and I want to take her to prom...

Sick

The morning commuter train was jam-packed but slow and quiet, glazed eyes like morning dew, scents of shampoo. My nose is always getting into someone's pit, so I coughed and spit all over it, wheezing instead of breathing with a phlegmy hacking...and pretty soon the whole bus moved away from my disease so I could move around as I pleased, begging the train patrons to pardon my cough, I have a mild bout of pertussis...

Movie Night

You didn't notice when I sprawl across you on the couch. You are busy popping pimples on your cheek, staring dewey-eye'd and dreamy at the television screen. You're fascinated with your pimples, with the motion of popping them; the way a tiny pore can burst between your fingers. The soreness, the tenderness, the pain right before release. The final breath, that sweet relief. I lean closer into you, our bodies already intertwined. You look at me as I gently pull your hand away from your face, you wonder what I'm doing. You smile and I smile too. I hold your face with my hands, we don't speak. I run my fingertips across your cheek and pinch lightly where your hand had been. Then I pinch harder and your pimple bursts, a small moan escapes when you exhale, I can feel your hot breath on your face. We both laugh, because there really is nothing else to do.