Short Story Ideas

1. Spending the day with an elementary school teacher and realizing how hard and tiring her job is and how much patience and dedication it takes
2. Taking someone to the emergency room at night and sitting in the waiting room forever and everything else involved
3. Figuring out what to get the person you like for Christmas and being nervous about giving it to them
4. Leaving college and going back home for the summer

From Your Best Friend Almost-Girlfriend

To recap what you already know:

You loved me 

then I loved you

but the overlap wasn’t quite long enough.

You moved on without me

and left me here 

to fixate,

latch on to what we almost had.

What no one’s told you:

I want to get there,

but I can’t bring myself to leave here,

sitting in safety,

still believing I’m next. 

You won’t be mine someday,

But I’m all yours.

I’m your trash.

Have a nice Valentine’s day with your girlfriend. 

November

We walk down the sidewalk
in knit jackets and sneakers
just as I asked if you wished to do,
pointing out the warm color of the concrete, while
the uncertain breeze blows through,
killing from the inside,
as leaves fall and crunch beneath our feet
and I stare hard at your skull
trying to see what you really think of me and
regretting telling you incriminating thoughts.

The wind bites harder and I want to talk
about old-time things like the way typewriter buttons click
and how the wax would drip and roll off glowing candles,
but I think better, and stare
at the matching tears in the hems of the bottom of our jeans
that you will never notice,
and when I lift my head
as the cold washes over,
I smile and you smile, and then I stop smiling,
and our gloveless hands freeze, four inches away from each other.

Power

I sit watching TV

feeling perfectly adequate

until the ads point out

my hair is too frizzy,

my legs are too short,

and I need to start shaping up for summer.

My sister is in grade school.

She can’t even spell “Victoria”

but she can’t wait 

for the day she needs a bra

because she can’t wait

to be a play thing rather than a person.

Armrest

These chairs are extremely close together.

I can’t tell if this armrest

is mine

or yours

or the girl’s behind us.

Whoever designed this room has never been a college student

or he would have known

that chairs this close together

aren’t conducive to learning.

Because how am I supposed to concentrate 

on history

or science

or whatever’s actually being taught,

when I’m too worried about accidentally kicking you

when I cross my legs?

In my brain it sounds like,

“The radio was introduced in--” Oh!

Did he just brush my arm?

I felt it.

Did he feel it?

Does he know he brushed my arm?

This chair creaks. 

When I shift to one side, you

and I

and the girl behind us

will know.

My legs are falling asleep.

It doesn’t help

that the air conditioner’s not on

or that this room has no windows,

but the worst part is 

trying, 

trying to pay attention

when all I want to do 

is ask you

if we can share the armrest.