WHO DID YOU USED TO BE?

~question often asked at a High School class reunions

I used to be the frog you dissected in freshman biology. Remember? You wired my nerves to a battery so you could watch me twitch.

I was the lunch lady, the largest one, who always gave you extra topping on your jello square because you were so thin. I was

the grumpy custodian who helped you open your locker the morning your dog died and you couldn’t see through your tears. Once I

was the chubby cheerleader dummy in the display case in the hall, wearing a faded letter sweater and a little blue skirt just above my pale pink knees.

Then I was that loser with braces who kept flunking gym because I couldn’t stand on my head or do ten chin-ups or run a whole mile. When I

taught you physics, I liked to say “Tangenital velocity.” It was fun to watch you trying to hide your embarrassed laughing with a cough.

I played the glockenspiel always a little out of sync, or the spit-filled trumpet, or the clarinet that gasped and wailed. I was

Mrs. Barry, who hated Dickinson and Frost so much I ruined them for you, almost for good. Remember how I ridiculed you for daydreaming during my terrible, tedious class?

But mostly I was the girl who wanted you to ask me to the Christmas Dance, who sat home alone that night staring at the newspaper clipping of

you in your baggy basketball shorts, your mouth open as you tried to catch the rebound that never came.