Russell

My near-final version of this poem. Points of contention - the beginning three lines (Craig David?), the repetition (which started boring even me as I read it out in class, but people said they liked it) and the final line... which used to be completely different.

We met on Monday,
sat together on Tuesday,
became best friends on Wednesday.
You liked my pictures. I liked your glasses.
You asked if I was a virgin. I laughed but did not know.
You lent me ten cents. I never paid you back.

Three years later, you moved to New South Wales.
I grew up. I was good at music, bad at sports.
I liked Backstreet Boys, hated Year 5 boys.
I almost forgot you
until one day I saw a man that looked like
he could have been Adult You.

Now I wonder all kinds of things:
Were you good in school?
Did you get beat up for growing pimples?
Did you get beat up for being a cane toad?
Did you get beat up by unrequited love?

What kind of sharp are you?
The shot you use at Duntroon
the magnum you use on bikies
or the wit you use for mischief?
Do you wear contact lenses now, an ankle monitor,
or the burden of your dead father’s debts?

But most of all I wonder
if that had been you
outside Queens Plaza,
wearing black wayfarers,
drinking a Starbucks.
I wonder if you made it that far.