May 27, 1996 (Megan is 15)

I can’t believe I did this. I guess I didn’t really do something but in a way I set it up…

I wrote this poem, with P in mind, over the weekend. As I was writing it and reading it and thinking about it, I kept thinking that it would be neat if P read it. So I figured I’d show it to L at lunch and hope he’d come by at the same time. I didn’t really figure it would work but I kept playing it out in my head all weekend.

So lunch came and I showed the poem to L and asked her what was wrong with it (based on the fact that nothing is perfect, therefore there had to be something) and she said there was nothing. Another girl wanted to read it and it ended up that everyone at the table read it and when they’d gone (I was still eating my apple) it was sitting on the table next to me. I left it there. It was kind of strange because usually I would have thrown the partially eaten apple away and left with L but I didn’t. It was like I knew or something. Anyway, about a minute or two after C (the last person) left, P got up from his seat two tables away and came over.

He does this pause when he gets near the table, like he’s waiting for me to look at him so he can say hello. I don’t know if he’d heard us talking about the poem (he was close enough to if he listened) but his eyes went straight to it. It was upside down to him and across the table so he couldn’t have read it. He asked if it was a poem of mine and then if I’d mind if he read it (“yes”, “no”).

He must have read it about 3 or 4 times before he said anything at all, because it was a few minutes (I’d asked him to tell me what was wrong with it “’cause no one else would”) and he mentioned what parts he especially liked and said he couldn’t write anything like that and other basic comments more on the content than anything. I figure he read it a total of about 10 times. Once he even turned it on its side and read it sideways. It was ten or twelve minutes before he had to go (to talk to a teacher) and after he left I was so light-headed. I felt like I was going to fall down I was so dizzy. Geez! I can’t believe he actually read it. I wonder what he thought.

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