Friday night in 1982.
Lights dimmed in the high school gym,
kaleidoscope of shimmering colors
frolic and dance over and through
a skeleton of steel beams
crisscrossing the darkened ceiling far above;
past broken out light bulbs,
faded balloons in suspended animation
gradually exhaling their last gasping breaths
of life-giving helium,
and stranded red rubber balls
long having given up any hope of rescue.
Mustering up every last ounce of courage,
heart pounding, adrenaline surging
through every vein of his pubescent being,
Boy spots the object of his infatuation-
Girl Who Sits In Front Of Him In Algebra I.
Barely knowing her name,
he has already determined in his heart
that she is the woman of his dreams.
Painfully conscious of the zit
bursting out of his forehead-
no less violently than the
extra-terrestrial stomach baby in Alien-
armpits stinky with perspiration and
wiping his clammy palms on his pants,
he paces nervously like
a mentally deranged street person,
carefully crafting and rehearsing
every word, every syllable, every tone, every inflection,
in the theater of his mind.
Blind with fear
and in an altered state of consciousness,
Boy clumsily approaches
Girl Who Sits In Front Of Him In Algebra I.
"Um...wanna dance?," he blurts out.
To his shock and surprise,
she bashfully smiles, "Sure."
Like a lamb leading a shepherd,
She takes his sweaty hand and
Gently leads and guides him to the dance floor.
Not Fred Estaire and Ginger Rogers,
not John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John,
Boy and Girl shuffle and sway awkwardly
to the romantic wailing
of REO Speedwagon's
"Keep On Loving You".
Like a butterfly drying
its newly acquired wings in the heat of the sun,
two virgin hearts excitedly flutter
in the warmth of newly discovered love.