Poet and middle school teacher Nico Alvarado wrote these poems inspired by the hottest fictional football player in Texas, originally published in the Gulf Coast literary journal.
Here are two of the poems:
You want to know what it was like?
It was like my whole life had a fever.
Whole acres of me were on fire.
The sun talked dirty in my ear all night.
I couldn't drive past a wheatfield without doing it violence.
I couldn't even look at a bridge.
I used to go out in the brush sometimes,
So far out there no one could hear me,
And just burn.
I felt all right then.
I couldn't hurt anyone else.
I was just a pillar of fire.
It wasn't the burning so much as the loneliness.
It wasn't the loneliness so much as the fear of being alone.
Christ look at you pouring from the rocks.
You're so cold you're boiling over.
You've got stars in your hair.
I don't want to be around you.
I don't want to drink you in.
I want to walk into the heart of you
And never walk back out.
I love you so much
I want to bury my fist in your chest.
Eleventeen.