I ran into Sally Clinton today
the girl who used to make me
eat pebbles on the playground
until my teeth bled and I could feel
the rocks coalescing in my stomach
until they became a boulder of dusty yellow brick—
she looked good, certainly better than she had in middle school,
but still in denim (as I’ve learned all cool people tend to wear),
and I said to her, I said “Sally Clinton, it’s been ages,” I said,
and she looked at me like she was going to make me eat rocks again, so I said, “Sally Clinton, you can’t make me eat rocks anymore,
I am an adult,” and she started to speak but I said, “Sally Clinton,
I don’t want to eat rocks anymore, I don’t want to do your homework,
I don’t want this weight of you pushing me to the ground,”
I said, and she realized I was serious because she flew back like a startled pigeon. And so I said, “Sally Clinton, you can’t fly from me that easily, we have so much to catch up on, so long as you don’t make me eat rocks or write mean things to Susan Bishop—you remember Susan?” I asked, but of course Sally Clinton remembered Susan Bishop, with that whole row they had way back in grade school, So I said, “Of course you remember Susan, Sally Clinton, like you must remember the rocks you made me eat, and how you spit on my neck, and when you choked me long enough for me to lose consciousness that one time.”
I said this as though we were good friends, and she nodded because she agreed so I said,
“Sally Clinton, I really do hope we can be friends, not like before though, not when you made me eat rocks and teach you about boats and kill my dog, or when you said we were friends so I would kiss you after school
with my bloody pebbleteeth and would touch you like you asked,
because you said I reminded you of your brother and I didn’t like that because, Sally Clinton, I just wanted you to love me.”

Then Sally Clinton said, in that voice of hers I do so love, “I think you have
the wrong person,” she said, “my name is Charlotte.” And she let that comment breathe between us, I assume to see if I’d let it fly and we both knew she was lying because it was so clearly Sally Clinton but before I could say anything else,
I began to heave a storm of pebbles onto the ground
that emptied my lungs and stomach and filled the room
and that’s basically why I don’t talk to girls anymore.