The girl with the long stringy
hair, the long greasy hair. The girl
who wore ill fitting, faded clothes
-clothes that had been passed down
& passed down again. The girl
who had a crush on me & wrote
me love letters, letters that said "I
saw you at the tennis court Tuesday
& wanted to walk over, but my father
was home." The girl whose father
had a sailboat stocked with food
& supplies in his backyard, whose
father sent her out for firewood half
-naked at three in the morning, whose
father held the entire family hostage
with a shotgun. The girl who needed
me, needed someone. The girl I didn't
acknowledge until now.
Corey Cook, New Hampshire, USA
When I started reading this poem, I had no idea where it was going to end. So many people have secrets that we're not aware of until too late.
ReplyDeleteI really love this piece. The way 'the girl' is repeated again and again to slowly reveal more information about her situation. I felt like the majority of the poem let me into the head of the writer as a boy-but the last bit switched me to the adult perspective-the things that the boy could never have seen. Very poignant.
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