Tuesday’s New Verse News: I’M CARRYING A TORCH (ON VALENTINE’S DAY)
by Lynda Gene Rymond
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I’m carrying a torch— not on a candy heart, not on a Hallmark card, not on a clusterfuck of balloons. It’s a real torch, spitting sparks, heading straight for fourth grade or whenever this monstrosity took hold on my little life. Shoeboxes lavishly decorated with construction paper hearts in the compulsory pinks and reds, lavenders and purples. Our names in paint or glitter above a gingerly cut slit, mailboxes for all the valentines posted in time for the party. Room mothers brought cupcakes, soda punch, boxes of crunchy hearts— I’m yours, too sweet, oooh la la! (these flame out nicely in candy colors.) Now the tally. Who got the most? Who got the least, again? Who needs to go to the restroom to flush the crumbs of a nine-year-old’s self-esteem? Be your own crush! I’ll shout as I swagger in with my torch ablaze (Have you ever watched crepe paper burn?) Forget this shitshow! (New vocabulary word, shitshow!) No more Valentines! No more walking around with your beating hopeful heart clenched in your fist. I’m carrying a torch for you, kid, until you can carry it for yourself.
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Lynda Gene Rymond is an author and poet residing in Applebachsville, Pa, where she tends goats, chickens, honeybees and a massive food garden.