Remember when Coach John would make us run
laps around the complex and we would write songs
instead of focusing on the fact that we were in last place?
We made one up about how much we hated soccer
but we still played until high school and even during
junior year we went back to kick the ball sometimes.
That’s when we made up the hard and fast three-strike rule
because both of our lovers kept flying red flags in our faces
and we knew we deserved better than what we had.
Remember the summer before eighth grade at the park
behind my house when we pretended to be british
and told a group of nine-year-olds you were dating Niall Horan?
You changed my name in your phone to “Niall” with a heart
so they would believe us, and years later you told me
that was still the name that came up every time I texted
asking you to come over so we could play Halo
and watch cooking shows on Food Network. Remember the judge
who told the contestant her croutons were “ra-donk-a-donk”?
And we kept replaying it and kept laughing until our giggles
turned into wheezes and in the morning we thought we finally
had the abs Coach John’s workouts never gave us.
And then you would leave and I would sit in the living room
and laugh about everything all over again. Until next time,
I would think. But how was I to know
there wouldn’t be a next time? How was I to know
that when we turned off the Xbox and rolled up the controllers,
turned off the t.v. after “just one more episode” of Cupcake Wars--
how was I to know that was our goodbye?
We parted as quietly, as secretly, as slowly as the deflating soccer balls
we left in my trunk; maybe as forgotten, too.
But I thought of you when I was nineteen and my new lover
swung and missed three times in a row—strike, strike, strike,
struck herself out, and bases might as well have been loaded
because I’ve ruled everyone else out too, and maybe, after all,
you were right about going for Niall Horan instead. And now
I think about you when 1D plays on the radio, and when
I pick up my guitar and instinctively strum that tune we wrote
about the girl we both hated for absolutely no reason, and when
the waitress forgets that I ordered my salad without croutons.
laps around the complex and we would write songs
instead of focusing on the fact that we were in last place?
We made one up about how much we hated soccer
but we still played until high school and even during
junior year we went back to kick the ball sometimes.
That’s when we made up the hard and fast three-strike rule
because both of our lovers kept flying red flags in our faces
and we knew we deserved better than what we had.
Remember the summer before eighth grade at the park
behind my house when we pretended to be british
and told a group of nine-year-olds you were dating Niall Horan?
You changed my name in your phone to “Niall” with a heart
so they would believe us, and years later you told me
that was still the name that came up every time I texted
asking you to come over so we could play Halo
and watch cooking shows on Food Network. Remember the judge
who told the contestant her croutons were “ra-donk-a-donk”?
And we kept replaying it and kept laughing until our giggles
turned into wheezes and in the morning we thought we finally
had the abs Coach John’s workouts never gave us.
And then you would leave and I would sit in the living room
and laugh about everything all over again. Until next time,
I would think. But how was I to know
there wouldn’t be a next time? How was I to know
that when we turned off the Xbox and rolled up the controllers,
turned off the t.v. after “just one more episode” of Cupcake Wars--
how was I to know that was our goodbye?
We parted as quietly, as secretly, as slowly as the deflating soccer balls
we left in my trunk; maybe as forgotten, too.
But I thought of you when I was nineteen and my new lover
swung and missed three times in a row—strike, strike, strike,
struck herself out, and bases might as well have been loaded
because I’ve ruled everyone else out too, and maybe, after all,
you were right about going for Niall Horan instead. And now
I think about you when 1D plays on the radio, and when
I pick up my guitar and instinctively strum that tune we wrote
about the girl we both hated for absolutely no reason, and when
the waitress forgets that I ordered my salad without croutons.