Fragments of Adolescents
By Sidney Garner
1.
They were bright little seconds in a happy childhood.
Innocent little things.
When did that all change?
When did I become so afraid
Of a simple little pencil sharpener?
Maybe it started years ago
When an unsharpened pencil jabbed my head.
Maybe that day was the first in a long war.
Maybe I should have taken it as an omen.
Maybe then I wouldn’t have found it so tempting.
To just see how easy it was to loosen a screw.
Maybe then I wouldn’t have been so surprised
When years later I performed an emergency operation
On one of those bright little bodies.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprise when
Blood was only drawn after I extracted the metal from the plastic.
2.
There was blood in the toilet.
I tried to stop it, but it kept on coming.
Everyone hyped it up,
Saying all these changes were wonderful,
But all I felt was scared.
I didn’t want to be a girl
But I had to accept it,
That didn’t mean
I didn’t fight it with every step:
Periods, makeup, dresses,
I wanted nothing to do with any of it.
The only thing I was remotely excited about
Was growing breasts and gaining curves
But that soon lost the appeal.
So I became a coward and
Hid under curls and sweatshirts.
I didn’t want to be a girl
But what else was there for me?
3.
There was lots of yelling.
What were we fighting about?
Another sibling fight?
It didn’t feel like it.
Yesterday I took a swing at you
In the bathroom.
Today you tell me I’m the reason
You want to kill yourself.
4.
Who the hell did I like?
I thought I had a thing for blondes
But it turned out I only fell for jerks.
5.
The pants I owned were too short.
I could ignore that but my mother couldn’t.
They squeezed my hips like a cobra.
I looked at the price scanner and all I saw
Was money we didn’t have.
I looked back to my mother:
“I’m okay until next fall.”
She didn’t believe me and wanted to protest.
I didn’t let her. We left the pants there.