Road Trip, Part Uno

"You know why I love road tripping with you girls?" My Sharona asked.

"Why?" Summer or I said, I can't remember which.

"Because we just had ten minutes of total silence. No singing, no talking, no humming. Just silence."

"I was thinking about the animal sanctuary," Summer said.

"I was thinking about nothing," My Sharona said.

"I was wondering why Carlos never wrote to me after that week at summer camp," I said, to laughter.

We were driving through Accord, New York, the town where I went camping with the Lashers when I was 13. It was where I met Carlos, who inspired me to begin writing bad poetry. We fell deeply in love. How I'd wished I hadn't French-kissed Claude Sawyer during Spin the Bottle at my pool party earlier that month, because then Carlos would have been my first. Alas, I never heard from him again after that week, despite his declarations of love. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, though. He was probably in a juvenile detention center, and probably had to finish out his term in prison when he was 18, and surely would have lost my number by then. Plus, Mom would have been pissed about all of the collect calls.

To celebrate a bit of backseat nostalgia (From the road trip with the girls -- Carlos and I were far too young to have ever done anything involving a back seat), here's a look back at the first awful poem I ever wrote, entitled Summer Love.