Confessions of The Black Lover Boy: Auline

I don’t know exactly what made me love you. I don’t mean this in any mean way. I just know that in 1st grade I loved a lot of girls, but for some reason, I wanted you. More than anything else. You were the first girl I wanted to be my girlfriend. I had no idea why I wanted that, nor did I really understand what that meant. You might have come around me at the perfect time. Maybe my brother first introduced me to his girlfriend at that time and I always wanted to be like him. You were ridiculously popular in our elementary school. Thinking back, it’s crazy to even think there was popularity at that age. I think there was just something so different about you. You knew French. Your hair always seemed to be so perfectly straight. You always had nice clothes. You always had cool accessories. And on top of ALL of that, you were a nice girl. I guess I do know what made me love you. Who you were. Not only as a girl, but as a popular girl. You helped me understand that who ever you are with becomes you, and you them. Me dating you instantly made me popular and I adored you for it. I loved people, especially girls, and now they all knew who I was. I guess when you got with me, you became more comfortable with how loving and nice you are. Hopefully more people loved you for that. I don’t feel I used you because I felt we had some real amazing moments. A real romance. I mean I guess they were real. Part of me feels like everything I remember about us existed in front of the crowd. I would have kids in middle school come up to me and ask me about things we did and I was confused. I know I wouldn’t have said a thing, but maybe you did. I just know you were definitely one of my favorite memories. I remember kissing you and really cherishing our lips touching. Cherishing the electricity surging through my nerves as I felt your breath come from your nose and rest on my lip. We never French kissed, which I think the whole school must’ve thought was hilarious. But we did share intimacy that I thought was real to me and you. I think no one was ready for you to be into the happy black kid. I think they couldn’t fathom the black kid being into the French girl. It happened though, and I feel in another time, in another place, without all the fans and the relationship moths, we could have made each other happy for a long time.

Thank you for being my first lesson in love’s ability to penetrate the skin. I love you. I hope you grew up to be as beautiful as you were.