in girl scouts, they teach you sayings
ones you sing around the campfire
they’re supposed to teach lessons
“make new friends but keep the old
one is silver and the other is gold”
except no one remembers the silver
the second-place trophy
the insignificant

in orchards of lemon trees

we tiptoe, under the hanging yellow fruit

in blue moonlight, we will stay until

orange light leads us inside

I am from hard worn leather beneath my feet.

Watching my second home from my favorite place,

4 feet above the ground.

From sounds of gymnastics filling my ears

to a layer of chalk and sweat that coats everything from my

Hey, I miss you

School started yesterday and

I really couldn’t stand

You not being there

They had a pasta bar in the cafeteria

The germs wouldn’t mesh well with your hypochondria,

But the butter noodles were okay

Tissues.

Litter my floor.

Scraps of Paper.

Crumpled and overflowing my recycling bin.

Eraser bits.

Cover my desk until the pale wood looks black.

You were my

Spaghetti boyfriend

Blonde

Full of spaghetti

That’s all I really

Know about you

You were my

Only friend

Bright

Full of potential

It’s strange how I don’t

Remember you

Different: not the same as another.

My “friends” and I, we’re different from each other.

They are cool; I am not.

I am lame; they are hot.

Even when they’re wrong, people think they’re right.

They like the day; I like the night.

I am me

They are them,

Three halves make a whole.

They are the oddballs

Nerds and geeks.

People with voices in their heads

And we love being weird.

We’re none of your labels,

And yet . . . all of them.

i, the definitive

the only you in the world

i am and you are individual

we are separate

we are absolute masters

of our individual perceived universes.

Marina Green had always been the epitome of normal. She got good grades, but they were nothing phenomenal. She was pretty enough, but no great beauty. She had friends (did one count?), but was nowhere near a social butterfly.

I walk through halls, the halls of a school. 

It’s a lot different than it was

Just five weeks ago.

I now know quite a few kids now,

They thought of me as the new kid,

The outsider, I don’t know if they still do.

The dictionary defines a “friend” as “a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.”

So are they homework answers?

Project partners?

A list of names?

None of the above.

New definition: