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FIRST LOVE
Private Notes
Private Notes
Notes
First Love
Age 17, Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire, 1962
-- This is one poem, in an autobiographical series of poems, I posted here at WriteSpike. Go to my stories section for others. They are in chronological order. --
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~
I liked girls, I liked them a lot
oddly this was seen as less
than masculine
boys weren't supposed to like girls
they were supposed to get what they could
first base, second base
they were supposed to score
and tell their friends
but I didn't really like sports
so these metaphors
weren't my cup of tea -
what I did with a girl
was our business not theirs
avoiding ridicule, I kept my ideas to myself
and instead I figured out how to see a girl
thirty miles away in Andover -
many Sundays in the spring
being a senior I knew the ropes
and used every trick
all of it with the school's permission:
I got some day trips
to count as weekends
so I could skip church
and take the early train
or when I had used up those slots
I went directly after services to the station
and came back before check-in
but that was only part of the gauntlet -
at her school even holding hands was forbidden
and students could not sit together on a couch
yet we were allowed to take long walks on school grounds
where the touch of her hand felt even sweeter
at prom weekend I brought her to the dance
gloating a bit (I have to admit)
since my classmates were stunned
that she was more than just a date
at dawn
hours before her bus
was to take her back
we took a blanket
to the river bank
where time stopped and
our schools were memories
we kissed so long and hard
that before I went to sleep
that night
I could still feel the press
of her hips and arms
as they surrounded me
along with the smell
of damp earth,
the flow of the river
and the taste of her lips
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This is so classic. I told you your stories feel like movies scenes. I wonder if it's because of the times you grew up in. Of course the way you write and your experiences are solid as well. I'm a fan!
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Nietzsche is a gold mine of interesting thought in very short paragraphs.
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I liked girls, I liked them a lotoddly this was seen as less than masculine boys weren't supposed to like girls they were supposed to get what they could first base, second base they were supposed to score and tell their friends
I love pointing out the societal expectation, and making note that liking girls for more than their body is seen as less than what a boy (or man) is supposed to be. Thank you for pointing out society's pressures put across young boys and men, and standing firmly against it.-
And then there is that obvious contradiction -- which is that a boy is supposed to turn into a man who finds a wife he is close to for the rest of this life.
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This is so beautiful Rick. Thanks for being a stand up guy, and a brilliant poet, writer and artist.
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Thanks, David -- What I am saying in these poems are the only things that make sense to me -- no matter what people, in general, told me.
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Beautiful!
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I agree with Thomas that everything feels like it could be a quick movie scene. I feel I'm getting to know your life so well with these.
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Beatiful! All your posts here are simply magnificent. Thanks for sharing
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WOW! Thanks. I continue to be delighted with the response I have gotten here on WriteSpike. Thanks, Jared.
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I had seen a lot of movies by that age and I knew a number of actors in NYC so thinking visually came naturally -- but you have picked up on it in ways that have helped me understand my own writing.