Thursday Nights in High School

I used to do my homework
Eating microwave popcorn sprinkled with garlic salt
Sitting through the crappy NBC shows
In between the good NBC shows
Talking to my friends on the phone
About how hard the homework I wasn't doing is

I let my cat crawl on my textbook
And my keyboard
And in front of my tv
And hop on my bed
And bother me delightfully

I would revel in the anticipation of Friday
My favorite day
A day where you spend all day looking forward
To the days to come
I would anticipate my day of glorious anticipation

I would wait until everyone else was in bed
And then creep into the kitchen
For a last-minute ice cream
And essay writing session

What is a plant cell?

Ugh...

One night Mom crept in with me
And got a spoon for herself

She asked me about the boy I'd decided that night I didn't like
And I got her up to speed instead of giving her my usual--

'Mom, we're not talking about this.  It's weird.'

She let her spoon spin around in the melting vanilla cherry
And with her hair down and her make-up off
She looked just like me
And she looked beautiful
And all at once I accepted it

Beauty--hers, mine, family beauty

It was pretty cool

We whispered and when we thought we heard my Dad wake up, we laughed
Into the sleeves of our pajamas

'Mom, what's a plant cell?'
'A what?'
'A plant cell.'
'Is that even a real thing?'

Back to laughing into our pajamas

I'm not sure I ever finished that essay

But I remember going to bed
Just as the sounds of morning
Starting sliding underneath my blinds
And crawling into bed with me

Just as I was about to fall asleep
Mom came into my room
Picked up the empty popcorn bag
Lightly placed the cat at the foot of my bed
And whispered a kiss onto my forehead

Before quietly closing my bedroom door
And slipping quietly into the morning

Every Thursday night in high school wasn't like that
But when I find myself remembering

That's what I remember