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Seventeen

April 14, 2021/ Caroline Shannon Karasik

[poetry]

I’m 17, and I am always in love.
The summer I turned fifteen,
a boy and his glinting, green eyes
ran through the sprinkler at work
and pulled me in with him.
We were kicked out of the building.
We made too many puddles.
On a patch of concrete out front,
with the sun shining in our eyes,
we turned our faces toward each other.
Confession: I thought he was going to kiss me.

I‘m 17, and I am always in love.
I drop my best friend off at the airport
for a 5 a.m. flight to five-thousand miles away.
Behind the dark clouds of a brewing storm,
the sun weakly rises, and I drive home alone.
It rains when I’m in the drive-through line
for a cup of coffee that only
goes to show how cold I am
without her. It turns out, I loved her all along.
I park in an empty parking lot to cry.

I’m 17, and I am always in love.
Las Vegas, ten o’clock, a social function
my parents dragged me into, until
my knight in shining armor appears.
He says, get in, let’s drive,
and he takes me to the suburbs.
I close my eyes at his command,
and when he tells me to open them,
I see the city shining below me.
He tells me that I have had the most
earnest, genuine reaction of
any girl he’s taken here before.
It makes me feel special
(in the worst kind of way).

I’m 17, and I am always in love.
I’m in a coffee shop trading sips of cappuccino
with a boy who smiles coyly over
the rim of his computer.
I help him with a math problem,
and his lips ghost against my ear,
close enough to feel, yet
far enough to believe it’s all a dream.
He buys me another coffee—
the quickest way to an academic’s heart.

I’m 17, and I am always in love.
I’ve had the same boyfriend for three years
(minus that one time at the dawn of spring
when I told him I didn’t know how to love).
He picked me up in October and told me,
I don’t need love. I just need you.
I wish I knew how to tell him
I love you.
I have always loved you.

I’m 17, and I am always in love,
but never with myself.
I eat lunch on a Saturday alone.
I spend fifty dollars on books.
I knit an ugly, mustard-colored scarf.
Let me be honest for a second
(with you, and with myself).
This is who I am.
I’m trying, I’m learning,
I’m loving. Just like I always do.

Abigail E. Calimaran is a full-time high school senior and part-time pre-K gymnastics teacher who also crochets while listening to Jane Austen audiobooks, consumes massive doses of caffeine, and dances alone to ABBA in her room. Her work has appeared in The WEIGHT and Overachiever Magazine.

School Lunch Archive

  • 2021
  • 2020
  • 2019

Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published the second Friday of every month.

Today’s course:

Behind the Eight Ball: How to Become Homeless in the Richest Country in the World

June 13, 2025/in Blog / Michelle Hampton
Read more
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Meeting My Child Self at the Trauma Play

May 9, 2025/in Blog / Michelle Hampton
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Products of Our Environment

March 14, 2025/in Blog / Michelle Hampton
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Midnight Snack

Take a bite out of these late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

Dig Into Genre

May 23, 2025/in Midnight Snack / Michelle Hampton
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Lauren-Howard-credit-Terril-Neely-scaled-773x1030-1.jpg 1030 773 Michelle Hampton https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michelle Hampton2025-05-23 23:59:492025-06-17 18:29:02Dig Into Genre

The dreams in which I’m (not) dying

April 25, 2025/in Midnight Snack / Michelle Hampton
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/paparouna-photo.jpeg 960 720 Michelle Hampton https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michelle Hampton2025-04-25 23:55:312025-04-24 15:06:46The dreams in which I’m (not) dying

On The Map

March 28, 2025/in Midnight Snack / Michelle Hampton
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/20220807-ariadnesaxt-MurielReid-01.jpg 1123 2000 Michelle Hampton https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michelle Hampton2025-03-28 23:55:152025-03-31 11:49:32On The Map

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Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every third Friday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

Tale of the resistant apple tree

June 6, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / paparouna
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/TaharBekri.jpg 512 340 paparouna https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png paparouna2025-06-06 11:00:072025-06-17 18:56:48Tale of the resistant apple tree

Talyshi Wall Graffiti and other poems

May 30, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / Michelle Hampton
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Ghazal-headshot.jpg 867 590 Michelle Hampton https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michelle Hampton2025-05-30 11:00:492025-06-17 18:59:20Talyshi Wall Graffiti and other poems

we don’t spend our lives in the belly of the fish

May 16, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / Michelle Hampton
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/headshot-translator-Gabriella-Bedetti.jpg 400 400 Michelle Hampton https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michelle Hampton2025-05-16 11:00:362025-06-17 19:02:56we don’t spend our lives in the belly of the fish

More Amuse-Bouche »

Word From the Editor

The state of the world breaks my heart every day. Broken hearted, I stay online. I can’t log off. Because my career and schooling are all done remotely, I tend to struggle with boundaries regarding screen time, with knowing when to break away.

Like many of you, I have been spilling my guts online to the world because the guts of the world keep spilling. None of it is pretty. But it’s one of the things that, having searched for basically my entire life, I found that tempers the chaos that lives rent free inside my head.

More from the current editor »
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