Share My Pain

Here's a poem I wrote when I was fifteen.  Please have your barf bag handy.

Beautiful unicorn

Let me climb onto your back.

Share with me

The secrets you hide

Beautiful unicorn

With your lovely white mane

Take me over rainbows

Into the unknown and unexplored.

Protect me

From the evils this world

Has shown me

The hatred, the guilt, the wars.

Take me back to where is is

Loving

Peaceful

Warm.

Beautiful unicorn

You are so free and untouched

So untroubled and stable.

I am frightened to touch you

For fear I mar your pureness

I am not worthy of a creature

So beautiful as you.

This world knows only how to

Hate

Destroy

Hurt.

It has hurt me terribly.

It leaves a huge empty pain

Inside of me.

I have loved.

And lost.

I could not be hurt again.

I am too vulnerable.

The pain would destroy me.

Beautiful unicorn.

If only you were a man

I could love you so much.

Jan. 3, 1982

OH.MY. GAWD.

In the course of packing, I came across a box of stuff my mother had saved that I'd moved a few times and never really went through.  I did a cursory examination of it and she had saved a big envelope of stuff I'd done.  School papers (The AP English one I got a D on comparing David Bowie's song Devil Devil and Marilyn Monroe was among them), articles I'd written for the school paper and this horrible little dirge of a poem.  I cringed when I read it but hey, I was fifteen, obviously this was about some unrequited crush I was angsting about and I like to spread the joy around.

Comments

[Darr]

OMG, we were bff's at 15 and I don't remember the love of unicorns. I have a booklet of poems we had to write for 10th grade English, but I have not dared to read them. The title of the booklet is "A lens out of focus, a fantasy to share." WTF? Could I have been more lame? Don't get me started on AP English. I don't remember what that assignment was, though. But I do remember Mrs. Decker going around asking who would be taking the AP test and me, fishing for reassurance and compliments, saying meekly "oh, I don't know? Should I?" Expecting a resounding yes. But she says, "Well, I suppose if you worked VERY hard you MIGHT be able to eek out a 2." (for those not familiar - AP test scores went from 1-5, 5 being the highest and very rare.) I think my jaw dropped. When I received my test results I wanted to go find where she lived and literally shove it in her face saying "Hah! I got a 4 bitch! And I didn't apply myself much and went out to breakfast before the test and was almost late! And now I don't have to take ANY college freshman English. So take that, you and your frizzy hair and little denim A-line mini skirt that you wear for weeks on end!" See? I said don't get me started!