Halfway through my seventh grade year
I walked into another world
a world of total strangers
who fit with each other
but didn't fit me
it was a strange world, one that even
the bravest of souls, the most secure
might not venture to enter…
planet middle school
but not just any middle school
it was the planet of the elite
inhabited by all manner
of privileged animals!
I learned what the phrase stuck up meant
a phrase for which I had a strong distaste
You see, I'd grown up on a planet called
the inner city, a place which made
the twelve year old kids of
doctors, and dentists, and lawyers
GASP,
their mouths agape
their eyes reflecting
shocked surprise
then disdain
Never mind that I was nice
or that I had been taught better manners
than any one of them
I was "the new girl"
(you know where she grew up, right?)
and quickly became the prey
for the unsheathed claws
of the high born
No matter
I had the confidence born
of parents who knew the score
and loved me with real connectedness
that had nothing to do with money
So I plodded on
through all of it, with steely strength
seventh grade…then eighth...
Crushes came and went
womanhood became a part of life
my body changed, my spirit soared
and life suddenly became
a grand adventure!
My first dance was the first of many…
dancing with a boy seemed so foreign,
but so exciting, just loving to move,
be held…
"Hey Jude…don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better"
Wearing slacks to school
something never heard of before!
"Daddy, please?"
Friend of the family
took me for a drive in
his Jaguar…
where my love of fast cars began
And he gave me my first bottle of cologne…
Tabu
Was that a portent of things to come?
My cousin came home from Vietnam
didn't know exactly what that meant
except he woke up with nightmares
and mom and dad said
he wasn't the same
then the news from Kent State University
made the national news and everyone
was talking about the war
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