bittersweet

by jamie hill
I like Valentine’s Day. Having said that, I’ll tell you that I’ve been married since—oops, if I’m truthful you’ll never again believe that I’m twenty-three, so I won’t say an actual number. We’ll just say I’ve been married a good many years. I don’t need a special day to tell my husband I love him. He almost died last year, so we say that to each other all the time. But I do take advantage of the Valentine’s Day holiday. I get chocolates, I don’t have to cook- what’s not to love about that?

In thinking about this post, I tried to recall an especially memorable V-Day and the first one that came to mind happened when I was nine. A classmate of mine…male and African American…gave me eleven cents tucked in the envelope with a little store-bought heart. He liked me. I was pretty thrilled.

I remember showing my mom when she came to pick me up from school, and she was horrified. She made me march back into that school, find the boy and return the moo-lah. (I think I got to keep the heart.) In hindsight, I wonder if she was more concerned that the money came from a boy (I was nine, after all) or an African American boy. I’ll never know. But he grew up to be a decent man, so I could have done worse.

In high school I was given the assignment to write a poem about one of my early years in elementary school. I choose that fourth-grade year, and wrote a poem in the style of ee cummings- lower case without punctuation. This year I ran across that poem (my scrapbook survived a tornado!) So, without further adieu, and with names changed to protect the nuns and the innocent, I present:

i feel much older now

it was always so funny when sister carla
would have to adjust her wig
in the cloakroom but none of us really liked her

we all laughed when goober-breath betty
cried in the building at recess
all by herself because no one liked her
but i was just following the crowd
i really did like her and she let me read
all her nancy drew books and we were best friends
in private

ann and kate thought they were our leaders
and we always followed them because we were scared not to
sometimes I hated them but really I was green with envy
of their popularity

i feel much older now

there was a time when we were playing a spelling game
with first initials on the blackboard
and ann got one then steve got two
and it spelled a bad word and sister carla called us playboys
when we laughed but none of us liked her

or when sister put her arm around ann
and ann jerked away
my was sisters face red then I tell you

our class was just getting its infamous reputation
like when we were warned against sliding on the ice ponds
on the playground but we did anyway
i fell down and had to go home with a wet, sore bottom
i learned
boy oh boy did i learn

i feel much older now

one time we let a dog in the classroom
for the whole morning without sister knowing
we thought she sure was stupid and none of us liked her

or the time we buried roger in the sand on the playground
and he stayed there from recess to lunch

or our valentine’s party when we played with a nerf ball
and someone threw it at sister and knocked her wig off
we laughed because none of us liked her

I wonder if we ever gave her a chance

I feel much older now
and fourth grade is just a pleasant and faraway memory…
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Hmmm…ee cummings, I’m not. But I do like to write poetry. And stories. Steamy stories. Check out my latest here . It released today from Total E-Bound Publishing. It's a m/m hottie called Secret Rendezvous!

Happy Valentine’s Day!