Paper airplane decrees
Fold it up tightly,
say goodbye with a wave
and a salute. The airways are busy
with our old-school traffic.
The phone is vibrating off the hook,
but my hands prefer the familiar
folds of college-lined paper, ready
to fly across classrooms to your backpack’s
waiting pocket. How many stick people
does it take to make up a small paper town,
parading around our eager hands? Pen pals,
doodle dudes, form friends.
Write with ink so the letters outlast
the next four years of education,
the switching and swapping of friends
like cheerleader fashion. Will we talk
on the other side? Our stick figures will
stick around, nestled inside the leafy clouds.
Another letter,
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the envelope tattooed
like the walls of Buenos Aires
with sketch and flair. The substance
rolls off the mind, but the colors stretch into tomorrow
—don’t forget to write back!
They all thought it was the war flags
of love, but we laughed and signed
our names before sending them
into the metal collecting tin.
If at first no one succeeds
You all know the one,
the girl who attracts thunder
with her lightning strikes. The girl
who trails behind the guy more interested
in his shoes than the female population, eager
to be nothing more than a name in the yearbook—
comfortably unnoticed.
But the others pressed in,
trampling the lockers and lunch trays
like bulls, all madly fighting against the lure
of the red flag.
But just because the others couldn’t
climb the tower didn’t mean I couldn’t try
everything else—take that one shirt from the closet,
the one with the robot disguised as a dog.
She’ll cave to such stark cuteness.
Unleash the arsenal—
take note of the worlds I built
with plastic blocks, the robots that fill the streets like trees.
But she could have been anyone—
thunder will follow any burst of lightning.