Sta.sh
i'll let you buy me a soda from the five and dime,
and we can catch fireflies by the lake and maybe
maybe i'll teach you how to fandango
(by the light of the moon that pulls the turning tide.)
and maybe, when the leaves turn gold and the morning frosts
i'll let you walk me home,
and you'll ask me
what my favorite sodapop is and if i believe in god.
(religion and politics, but then
we were never polite company,)
and i'll tell you that
i don't know,
that i never could decide between coke and dr. pepper,
and that god is kind of like soda when you shake up his followers
so i never could decide about him, either.
and if god is sodapop, i think he'd be cola,
so maybe my taste buds have already decided that i believe.
- and at this point we will have reached my house
and seen my father at the door.
goodbye will be a sprite kiss on my cheek
and you'll disappear before he can tell you that god is really
cream soda.
and the next day you'll come with dr. pepper
and a coke.
"which one tastes like god?"
and i'll sip quietly and reply
"they both do."
you won't understand that god is only coke
when he's angry,
and then you'll ask me about science,
because if i don't believe in a lemon-lime god
then i must believe in
stars and atoms and all the proof that i can hold
between my thumb and index finger,
and i'll tell you that science is just a way of
deifying gravity
and that when i jump,
i want to believe that i don't have to land-
so no, i don't believe in
molecules and periodic tables
or the fact that we have more bones when we're born
than we do when we die
(because even if it's true,
bones aren't feathers
and they don't let us fly.)
and you'll say
"you're an atheist"
and i'll laugh.
"of course not. i believe in a lot of things, like
that the sun rises in the east because e
comes first in the alphabet,
that sometimes the earth gets so jealous of the love between the moon and the sea
that she trembles,
but, most of all, i believe that
earthworms aren't loved the way they deserve to be
because people can't get past the slime
and realize how beautiful they are.
i will be able to tell by your eyes that
you do not appreciate earthworms
or think that the sea can love.
"grape or cherry," i'll ask,
and you'll say that He is orange
to you.
i will not call you crazy,
just shake your
- pop
(they do call your god
"father,")
and when we reach my house this time
you'll be brave enough to meet mine.
"why do you love my daughter?"
and i know that when you reply
your answer will have nothing to do with
sodapop or earthworms or
naked red wagons,
so while the two of you speak i'll jump from the porch and
ignore gravity,
because even though my tongue believes in a cola god
and there are two hundred and six bones beneath my skin,
if i can drink mountain dew instead of pepsi
and tell the doctors that i don't want my ribs
then i can make gravity believe that it doesn't exist
just long enough to
taste the cola sky and
fandango with fireflies.
But seriously, it made my day and I cried so hard. I walked into a room and all of my friends and teachers were standing there and they clapped and cheered and there was pizza and gifts and I was stunned that people would do something like that for ME. They gave me a sweatshirt that says "sometimes I pretend to be normal, but then it gets boring so I go back to being me," a t-shirt that says "not all superheros wear capes" and has my name on the back, and a little silver necklace in the shape of France: on one side it's like a map and on the other they engraved "Cailin, on t'aime." I saw that, turned toward the one friend who had planned the whole thing, saw the tears in her eyes, and cried so, so hard. 
I'm so glad you think so. 
