Your Awkward Middle School Flashback

Vivienne’s found herself at the end of a very long and very messy mess of a day, and so will probably be writing a most unfashionable poemlogue. Such things, sadly, must be done.

Let’s abbreviate: Vivienne’s love life generally most resembles a scene she once saw in Florida whilst sitting happily in the backseat of her parents car, admiring the fancy and frenetically green foliage, the tropical flowers and their profusion of blooms, then: the vulture, in the middle of the road, dying, and six of his vulture companions gathered in a circle clearly not of mourning but of pure appetite-whetting.

Given this, Vivienne decided to hearken back to a simpler time for this evening’s poem. Vivienne decided to revisit her 8th grade Algebra I class, where she sat, every day, her crossed legs pressed against the cold steel bars of her desk, and stared at the glorious and magnificently tousled hair which circled the back of one David F.’s hair. David F. was, in a word, beautiful. He was Zack Morris. Or, more so, he was Jordan Catalano, and he made me so mute that I think the only words I ever said to him were “you dropped your pencil.” And yet, and yes, I hoped. I had faith. I purchased a fashionable gray angora twin-set from The Limited and removed the sweater once I got to school. I had faith. One day, one day, David F. would be mine, just as Jordan was Angela’s.

Of course, David F. asked me to the 8th grade semi-formal solely as a way of getting back at his ex-girlfriend and my best friend. Of course, David F. snuck out behind the back of the school cafeteria with his ex-girlfriend and my best friend and a yearbook camera caught them kissing. Of course, David F. later dropped out of school because he couldn’t spell the word “cat.” Of course, David F. now has very little of his formerly fabulously tousled hair, and wears pink polo shirts which never quite fit right, which (the pink polo shirts, I mean) makes Vivienne very glad David F. bestowed his smooches upon his ex-girlfriend and her best friend.

What Vivienne remembers and treasures most about David F. is the hope, and much of that hope existed in the glittering hours of the glittering evenings she’d spend in her upstairs bedroom, playing Frente’s “Labour of Love” over and over, rewinding and replaying the cassette, so many hours and so many evenings that even now, when that song pops up on shuffle in her iPod, her heart clenches for a second and then soars and she thinks — no, she hopes — no, for that second, she knows it just might work out this time.

N+7 Adolescent Verses

Here, we learned that Frente secretly loved Brigham Young.