2d • ✨ Love & Lyrics ✨
The Tall One
after Craven Smith
Latisha.
Not the short one.
The tall one.
The one who has
the same surname as Steve.
I’d watch her go by
my homeroom class—walking
the halls of Springfield Gardens
High School—none of my homies
gave her a second (or first) look.
Latisha, the tall one,
a late bloomer with a cute ass
overbite. I’d get weak at the knees
when she smiled.
I would’ve loved for her to choose me
for a semester full of uneven hickeys.
But a wet-behind-the-ears freshman
had no chance at a twelfth grade goddess,
dressed in no-name clothes, sporting
a short bob with bangs
and a nameplate necklace.
Latisha, the tall one,
slimmer than a lowercase l.
Old Timers would talk
about skinny women and say,
“If she’s slim, she’ll make ya head spin.”
I lost track of my high school crush
when Stride Rite went out of business.
I’d walk by, watching her sell baby shoes,
on my way to shoplift hip-hop cassette tapes
out of Sam Goody Music Store.
Latisha, the tall one,
bailed me out of Mall Security jail
with just her employee ID
and a beautiful but guarded smile
that you’d rarely see. (Because she
shied away from her own reflection.)
We sat in her Mitsubishi Mirage
listening to Babyface and Tevin Campbell.
It wasn’t my preferred listening choice—but
my newly released TOO $HORT cassette
got confiscated. The security guard threw it
into a box marked “shrinkage” and made me
sign a document marked DNR.
I almost died, seeing Do Not Return
stamped at the top of the page; it had me
on the verge of needing resuscitation.
That ban barred me from my boo!
That day lives on in my mind,
although Green Acres Mall passed away.
She still haunts my fantasies
and catalyzes memories…
Mr. Woolery, a great chemistry teacher,
assigns permanent lab partners
to the two Latishas in our class.
He points at a metal stool, next to
the Magnetic Polarity chart, and tells me:
“You’ll be with Latisha. The tall one.”
5
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The Tall One
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