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Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. Leonard Cohen

Friday, June 1, 2012

Too Young

Little girls lost
Stumbling in the middle school maze
Dazed
Braces and bras
Awkward and powerful
Stuck between Barbies and birth control pills
Summer lemonade stands and summer lovers
Looking for suburban supermen
to fly us away
take us anywhere but where we were
Magic men
to perform an alchemy
transform us
We found instead snot nosed boys
with dirty fingernails
men with wandering hands
and dirty minds
The music promised
lipstick and leather
adrenaline fueled dreams
We knew the words like
our own heartbeats
Sang them like a prayer
a supplication
Waiting for a divine god, goddess
to answer as we waited
for our confidence to grow
with our breasts
We watched the wild ones
studied them with awe and envy
and a little fear
Denim and leather
Mullets and swagger
We didn't know if we wanted to
be them
or be their girlfriends
Barracudas or
butterflies
but we ached to be free.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Friday Music Prompt, Rock Hard (Suzi Quatro tribute w/ a bit of Heart)

15 comments:

Kerry O'Connor said...

You have some wonderful combinations here: barracudas or butterflies, lipstick and leather. I enjoyed this retrospective very much.

Helena said...

I just just just loooove the line - "Stuck between Barbies and birth control pills"

You've caught the essence of teenage growing pains and feelings, it's like my hormones hitting me all over again! And what makes things even better is Suzi - and that feather cut - socking female rock to them at the end. That's my girl.....!!!

Kay L. Davies said...

Oh yes, I remember being too young. I'm glad I'm not a teenager any more, but I'd like to be 30. LOL
I like your poem — a different perspective on the prompt. Thanks, Lolamouse!
K

Mary said...

Well written. You have captured adolescence SO well with your words.

Marian said...

ooooh i can tell you've been jonesing to write this one! excellent and i'm so glad for the Barracuda line, too. awesome, awesome. and i also think it's fantastic that everyone's using a different SQ song, everyone's obsessing on SQ! YIPPEE! xoxo

Brian Miller said...

middle school...was def a time...but not much fun...knew a bunch of songs by heart...became a wild one a bit after escaping that...then...

said...

Fantastic. So very much truth expressed here.

You are so right about the night and day contrast from one year to the next.

Love these sections:

"Braces and bras
Awkward and powerful
Stuck between Barbies and birth control pills
Summer lemonade stands and summer lovers"

"We found instead snot nosed boys
with dirty fingernails
men with wandering hands
and dirty minds"

"We didn't know if we wanted to
be them
or be their girlfriends
Barracudas or
butterflies
but we ached to be free"

rosemarymint.wordpress.com

Hannah said...

Barracudas or
butterflies
but we ached to be free.


Love this closing!! Powerful and poignant!

Maude Lynn said...

"Stuck between Barbies and birth control pills"

That is so perfect and true.

Fireblossom said...

You've captured it, LM. I love the tag "that 70s childhood".

vivinfrance said...

Not so much a rock poem as a brilliant exposé of adolescent angst, which took me right back to those teenage years (mine were in the 50's, and I saw the start of rock!)

Susie Clevenger said...

This is fantastic!! You rocked the challenge!!

JustRex said...

I'll tell ya.... Trying to live up to rock 'n roll expectations was no picnic from this side of it either. By middle school I was firmly convinced that all women were completely insane and impossible to please.

I'm still not convinced otherwise.

De Jackson said...

Excellent.
"We knew the words like
our own heartbeats
Sang them like a prayer"
And oh, how we ached to be free.

This was SO me...and then again in my early 20s, with Alanis Morrisette. Speaks so clearly of any era.


de
www.whimsygizmo.wordpress.com

Daydreamer said...

I have a 16 y/o who is in this in between stage now. Trying so hard to be an adult and yet, still watching anime cartoons. Not an easy age at all.
Great capture of the prompt!