Sarah Carson
For the girls shucking corn by the pound after school. For Andrea B.: my life science lab partner, who said to all the other girls in the lunch line, "I have to work with Sarah C." like Sarah C. was the peak of ass climbing out of a janitor's gym shorts. Ok, Andrea B., so I did not smoke cigarettes in the storm cellar. So other girls switched t-shirts before second period, and I worried a second hand, dreamed of finishing my math. At Keely F.'s slumber party, in Mandy B.'s basement, at the gazebo by the river where Shana W. got pregnant, I did not open my eyes during Bloody Mary, did not help Mary S. wipe the blood from her jeans. Dwight B. is in the church van locked in love with the other Andrea, and I am at home writing his term paper: 800 words with perfectly-formatted citations. If the English teacher storms into the study hall, the essay trailing her like a deputy, if Dwight B. opens a window to make a run for it, I will not make a run for it. I will plant my foot, pivot into a half nelson. I will become the thing I've been waiting for. All I ever needed was an infinite universe, to try again, to try again, to try again one more time.