Things I’d Tell my 13-Year-Old Self Had I a Time Machine

03/01/2009 01:48

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Eric Morago

Everyone’s got regrets. If you could sit down and have a conversation with yourself 15 years ago, what would you say? I thought it’d be fun to play with this idea a bit. I tried to mix enough humor with sentimentality to really make the poem seem honest.

When mom says it’s time to throw out your old comic books, don’t listen. Hide them under the mattress; she’ll assume you’re hoarding Playboys and not ask questions.

Take Spanish freshman year, so when your friends plot against you using words you’ve never heard before, you won’t get caught with your pantalones down in front of the whole junior varsity cheer squad.

Switch from tighty-whiteys to boxers.

The summer your grandmother moves in, don’t spend so much time at the arcade. Stay home on the couch with her in the afternoons watching the O.J. Simpson trial. Memorize what a room feels like with her in it.

Despite that one episode of Saved By the Bell, beer is not evil.

Fight the temptation to take a road trip to Boise after you graduate. Eighteen hours is too long a drive to find out she doesn’t like you that way.

Under no circumstances are you to sketch the girls you have crushes on and send the drawings to them in the mail. Do, however, write poems about them—terrible, awful poetry—shoeboxes full of folded, crumpled notebook paper that you can one day use for kindling when you’re old enough to start a really good blaze.

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Things I’d Tell my 13-Year-Old Self Had I a Time Machine

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