By Sofia Barreto
Six Steps to Sex
One, meet her on accident,
Between passing period and lunch
Make sure she likes you too,
So you ask her out for crepes
At three in the morning,
Come over unannounced, call her out
And before she can say anything,
Kiss her in your car
Five minutes will pass,
The windows will blanch with steam
And if all is done,
You’ll get to try six with her.
Scrunchie
Wrapped around the stick shift in her old car
a hair band– a salmon-colored satin scrunchie.
When she gave it to me,
it was with a smile
and a breathy laugh that carried the butterflies in my belly.
It was always in my hair,
tying up the loose strands of love I felt for her
into a presentable pile.
She’d remark about it at lunch
with the cool tone she kept around others,
and she’d tug at it in private,
warm fingers pulling the pink off,
while we both whispered
what we only half-meant.
Over time, I tied it around a hairbrush instead.
The pink grayed out and the fabric frayed,
wearing itself.
We’d talk in the halls,
touching our frigid fingertips together
before we moved onto more important things.
Nowadays, the old thing sits in a random bathroom drawer,
collecting dust next to other forgotten crap.
Sofia Barreto is a Peruvian writer from Houston, Texas. Primarily writing vignettes and poetry, in their free time they enjoy baking.