"This one's happy - for you" or "They said I couldn't do it"

By Jenny McClain

I never minded eating
cheap chocolate ice cream
out of the container
but you took me
to Haagen Dazs
letting me
pick out any flavor
and treating me to
whipped cream and hot fudge.
I was used to silence
but you let me laugh
in my loud obnoxious way
and listened to my
theories on a Middle East religion
while holding steadfastly to
your own faith.
You opened up to me
by telling me you weren't
always open.
I had been stung before
by biting humor
but you teased without malice.
I craved affection
but it was different
when you didn't reach
for my hand.
The closeness,
the intimacy
was still there.
I wasn't sure who I was with
when you picked
me up.
But I met someone new
when you tenderly
kissed my lips.
And the boy
I tortured in school
became the man
I can't stop
thinking about.

--Published in Bullseye, my high school literary magazine, in 1989.