We Were Burnouts

My first real album was The Cars which you gave to me in seventh grade outside the Home Ec room where I sewed my own robe. I just got kicked out of the Latin Ladies, the gang of female Latin Kings, (little sisters and cousins of men with tattoo tears) when you found out I was white. It was almost my birthday, you wore really a lot of eyeliner and I think you smoked weed way before I needed a bra. When I went to your house; it was an apartment, which I had never seen before and I was a little scared. You rolled up a tiny joint in a Tampax wrapper. Which was cool, I guess, on your porch, twelve, fresh and there. Missy Marquez showed up, with her boyfriend Bobo. I couldn’t believe they stole your pot, which was really your mom’s, stolen from her drawer. We walked to the Yum-Yum Stop for twist cones with crunchy sprinkles, the last night of St. Lucy's carnival, Tilt-a-Whirl, swings spinning in high circles. You ditched me at the bake sale but I found you behing the Port-a-John making out with Frank Bodnar, his blue Izod polo shirt was clean, smelled like Downy and a basement nobody used. Your wrote your name “Kristina” on my hand with a smelly marker, “Kristina Loves Frank” then “Go home Jessica”