Girl Crush

(What’s unique — about me?

My love of humanity!

I don’t always

use the term “bisexuality” but only

‘cause my desire

is bigger than language.)

The hot pink blush of my first girl

crush, My God, what a rush! — sent

my heart chakra spinning before

I'd even grown up. Before I knew of

meditation, masturbation, mojitos,

or the Buddhist school of Zen, and

definitely before I knew of women

liking women and men.

She was my main muse, teenage heart-fuse,

replaced Tiger Beat magazines and pop

culture dreams of Jesse McCartney serenading

me against a backdrop of foaming fountains. Her

pink was like flowers on porcelain plates, she was

always late, astrology-brained,

she was Gwen Stefani cool.

I’d stay up past midnight watching girl kiss girl

scenes on the family’s ancient Dell screen

after MSN chats with the hockey team

rolled us over into dream-time,

all our pixelated flirty lingo: ღ シ <(・ε・)>

our casual Will u be mine?’s.

Tahoma font, size twelve and fuchsia,

I didn’t know a crush could do that to you,

that it could turn your hair into into spring-time

air and make tulips grow from your fingernails

while your sense leaves for the night,

out salsa dancing.

The girl was pink like Spanish love songs,

champagne-winged fairies, bejewelled thongs.

That’s just me though, I think she’d call herself

some kinda black hole, but night after night,

I fell into her cotton candy clouds, prancing

around, so thrilled by the glitch she stitched

in my matrix.

I knew that mom said it was wrong,

but her name in my brain glowed like childhood

fame! Sequins! Paris! Miss Grande Dame!

I had no shame, love-struck on the lake misreading

Frank O’Hara poems — “m[o]st lovers of Eros

end up with Venus” — and so it goes.

Now the girl is gone, my young years have flown,

& I’ve grown a rainbow, psychedelic soul. I've been

to Iceland, been to Rome, drank green martinis &

played angel in white snow. I've recorded love songs

on my iPhone. I've painted my nails Aruba blue.

Life, what a view! Still, though, I dare to think,

there's been no colour sweeter than the pink

of my first girl crush.