Adolescence: An Apology

When I think of the years of my adolescence I feel neither nostalgia or sentimentality. There were some good times and not so good times. There were lovers and friends lost and forgotten, places lived and left. All in quick succession. Gusto and hot air I was a hurricane, careless like only the young are allowed to be. I was lost, for those were the years before poetry, before humility.

I only started to write in my late twenties, and due to this I don’t have any Juvenilia to speak off. My juvenile poems were written on the cusp of middle age, and are far from the doe-eyed idealism of some younger poets. As a writer I was born a curmudgeon. The silent sigh of joint pain buried in every line.

In a roundabout way what I’m trying to say is: I don’t think of adolescence much, so I have barely written about it (why I chose to write about the topic is anyone’s guess). In a brazen ploy to lower expectations, I have the one poem I unearthed from a bottomless draw (don’t we all), and reading it again after all these years, I’m not ashamed to admit I recognise myself. It goes as follows:

The Lonely Models 

All those girls from the other school 

you fingered and fucked 

(their Mums too). Where they lived 

seemed an otherworldly place, 

in the part of the town I wasn’t allowed to go. 

I would watch you mime the moves 

in high pitched squeals recite your name, 

until the time came when we would see 

my Dad waiting diligently at the bottom 

of the hill, signalling tea was ready. 

He always invited you. 

You never did talk while we ate 

perfectly happy to watch the telly 

and laugh at the jokes Dad made, 

often you would stay the night 

and we would play boardgames 

whilst he washed your clothes. 

In the morning you would abscond 

to do your rounds as I went to school. 

I could only imagine what you were doing 

playing patty cake in the other estate 

with all the lonely models. 

I pictured my face on your face. 

I could never understand the reasons 

you gave for coming back, 

they were needy and nagged 

they wanted more than you could give 

if it was me I would’ve given more 

than I had stayed when they asked 

dig-down and never return. 

I’ve come back to help Dad move, 

you’re where I left you in the cul-de-sac, 

and seeing you now nothing’s changed, 

you still pretend to desire the wrong things. 

I recognise the fragility in your wave 

as I drive my Father away.

Jamie Field.