This pizza here
I’m not sure if you knew
but this is the pizza of my youth.
It is the first pizza I loved.
After I had sworn off the food
for an early five years
because of a primordial trauma
in a truck stop somewhere upstate
involving English muffins and ketchup
I went to the local place and said
“This
this is good.
I will never eat from another place.”
And for years
it was true.

Until college it was the only pizza I ate
and even then
it was the only pizza I truly loved.
This pizza here
is the pizza of my early years
that I grew with
that helped me become
the man-child I am.
I hope you enjoy it
the way that I do
and will partake of it
often in the future.

I hope you have many a chance.