She was eighteen, I was fourteen,
All I had were dreams;
Damn, those were confusing visions,
With recurrent themes —
I felt tortured every night.
I’d try to get some rest:
There she was, then, on the beach,
And I just felt possessed.
Images and strange new feelings;
Latency and double dealings,
Sonia smiling down at me,
That was perfect misery.
Fear that follows like a sickness,
Puberty’s a sorry business.
Tortured visions, out of reach —
Sonia, smiling, on the beach.
I was fourteen, reaching desperate;
I was short on clues —
Damn, it was bewildering,
Although, back then, ’twas news
How nights were made for boys to suffer
Sights they can’t avoid:
Then our awkward first essayings,
Girls just get annoyed.
Images and strange new feelings;
Hours, looking up at ceilings,
Sonia smiling down at me,
That was perfect misery.
Fear that follows fear with swiftness,
Puberty’s a sorry business.
Tortured visions, out of reach —
Sonia, smiling, on the beach.
Teenage passions poured in streams:
Sonia, laughing, in
My dreams
To share is human:
crummy world-14 is when i almost got raped. If one can use the word “almost” for such an assault by an older man. i drove him off by a no-holds-barred fight. The experience and my subsequent summons to the police line up to identify the man left me permanently psychologically scarred.
Would you know: i was transplanting day lilies in a public park when it happened. In an upper crust white collar Boston suburb.-crummy world.
i don’t know why i am publishing this except that my heart bleeds for all the unloved, mistreated adolescents in our world.
Holly
I’m so sorry, Holly.