Ode to Pink Pearl

When you're new, you're soft--pink, rosy, fresh out of the eraser womb, ready for anything You smell like fear, or comfort, I'm not sure which. Like rubber, like sand, like a photography dark room. Like air conditioning and the resulting goosebumps. Like my time is running out and I only have half of the answers bubbled in; like the stories I've been daydreaming about while ignoring the math problems on the test.

Like my elementary-school cafeteria, where I sat with my back to the entry door (the one connected to the wall I felt once with my lips, just to see what it felt like, because I had gloves on my hands and they had textured palms and I knew someone would make fun of me as I heard the kid talking--"ew, she's kissing the wall!"--but he didn't understand it; my hands were cold) and tried to fill in the bubbles at the beginning of the test. I always felt dishonest picking just one of Hispanic or White--both seemed wrong, and I wanted to make a note on the side saying that I was both, but also neither. But another part of the directions said not to write outside of the bubbles. That wasn't how the test worked. You did what they told you to do:

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