Bad Poetry

Ugly

if i were to fall in love

and if they were to reciprocate 

i am 10 years old

his name is Joel

and i want to steal his smile 

instead i hand it over to my friend

she has the biggest crush on him ever

“i have the biggest crush on him ever”

take his smile, take his smile

 i don’t need it anymore

if i were to fall in love

and if they were to reciprocate 

i am 12 years old

his name is Shane

and he has a birthmark 

and his breath smells badly 

but he laughs really loudly with me

and i hug him at the end of the school year

tightly

and ignored the smell of his breath

if i were to fall in love

and if they were to reciprocate 

i am fourteen years old

and his name is Alisher

he wears a leather jacket and smokes pot 

and he sometimes looks at me and talks to me with his eyes

i put my guitar back in class very quickly so i can follow him out 

i never speak to him next year or the year after that

but my eyes follow him, makes sure to catch him in the hallway in his leather jacket

if i were to fall in love

and if they were to reciprocate

i am sixteen years old 

his name is Brandon 

and he is Golden

he asks about my arms 

and he plays his music loudly and his smile reaches his liquid brown eyes 

he tells me about how sad he is and asks if i have any adderal 

he visits next summer but I’m not there

and i know he was looking for me and i still have his number saved in my phone (3 years later)

if i were to fall in love 

and if they were to reciprocate 

i am 19 years old 

his name is Sean

he has beauty marks spread sporadically across his face

i want to reach out and stroke his cheek 

and press my lips to his eyes 

i notice that his face turns red whenever he finds the courage to speak

and he held the door open for me once and i never got to see his face turn red in front of me because

we never spoke 

but i sure stared at the back of his head a lot 

and now I’m old enough to have wanted him to touch me

but i just dreamed about it a lot 

if i were to fall in love

if they were to reciprocate 

i am 

10 

12

14

16

19 

and i have always had soft skin

and eyes that can sink into handsome faces

and if I had a genie 

a shooting star 

a wish bone 

“if I could just fall in love, 

if He could just reciprocate.”