I went to meet her
In my new red pants, sure to
Impress the empress

Next door when I was thirteen.
I used to exclusively

Laugh at myself in
This scenario — the young,
Naive boy who thought

He could just walk out there and
Insinuate himself in

Her impossibly
Exquisite world (really just
As dead and baffling

As mine, as ours). But now I’m
Proud of that kid, intrepid

And red-pants’d, charging
Forth with the accidental
Confidence of the

Pure at heart and the lovers
Of life who heedlessly dive

In, unaware of
The piss-poor odds that compel
Others to peek through

Blinds to see from afar, but
Never to woo, nor to win —

To say: “Here I Am,
AS I am! And isn’t it
Quite a thing to just

LIVE, to dare, to shoot your shot,
To show up in your red pants?”