Velvet, Just Like You

I used to know this girl

Her hair was bright red, tightly curled

And she rendered me mute

Silenced me with her ivory skin, her green eyes, her soft upper lip

The boys all loved her

Especially my own

Even I sometimes wondered what it would be like to kiss her

Somewhere in the gentle dark

As me, or as him...I was never quite sure

She held my teenage world in her hand

Quivering

Like a landed minnow

Like an arrow failing to find its mark

Together we would sneak off to a dead-end somewhere

Park her beater Toyota in the deep, verdant shade

And listen to synthpop

I gazed, wide-eyed, as she tucked an errant curl behind an ear

Struck a match, pouted her lips, 

And inhaled at the end of a cigarette

I don’t know, Liz! she would exhale

I just don’t know!

Her laughter cleaved the air

I smiled, stalled, stuttered

Finally found a tepid giggle

That I had hoped would be throatier

More full-bodied

Like the contours of summer time

I tried to be velvet that day

Tried to be satin

Tried to be smooth

Starting the ignition,

She looked casually over her shoulder

Backed the car out of our protective shade

My moment with her was vanishing

Vanishing as fast as the liquid smoke that trickled through her curls

And spiraled out the open window

Pointing the car back down the road

The smell of hot asphalt communing with the evening rain

I tasted stale ash 

And it thrilled me

It repelled me

I was lucky, I was insignificant

I was so terribly alive, but already forgotten