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One Friday

by Meredith C Hartwell

i.
on three hours' sleep, i catch the bus home and
talk with bold young women about love, boyfriends,
parties, and the joys of turning 18 at last.
i am
nearly 21, unemployed, and uninterested in dulling
my mind's tired functioning and my love is not
single and so i remain
sitting quietly then stand, thanking the driver because
i think so few remember to do that
anymore and i wait patiently for a father
who has forgotten while this woman comments on the
cold and i am watching a high school boy hit and kick
the USA Today machine and he seems more bored than
angry in his layered thug gear to hide his pink
babyfat cheeks. he drops his bag on the bench
and says,
"sorry for making an ass of myself but
i kep' on hittin' and the change just keep comin'."

and i would like to say i did something poetic like
weeping over today's youth and the future of a nation
but the truth is,
i simply wondered if i should wait across the street and
who ever collects all those newspaper quarters
anyway?
and i sit and shiver until my mother in my sister's
borrowed car pulls up to drive me home, where i
am not staying.

ii.
and you drive me to the costume party, but the
directions are wrong so we get lost twice and call it
an adventure
before calling the hostess for a towline through the
proper turns and a laugh and we are still the first
to arrive. so we nibble carrots like bunnies and observe
a small room with occupants multiplying and we know
no one, but we define ourselves by the familiar, because
every social circle must have a Greg, an Erik, a Tina.
(we are not disappointed.)
and we avoid contact with those who look like people
who never liked us anyway and join conversations with the
dopplegangers of friends, as if this is where we belong, as if
this is what high school was supposed to be, though we are
too many credits through college to pretend
for long.
but we eat pizza and drink hot cider, explaining to three who only
speak French, "jus de pommes. c'est chaud," and
i guess high school was good for something after all if i still
remember my vocabulary.
and we talk with God, androgynous, and Her
friend Stalin, but avoid Medusa and the green paint she
smudged on the couch. and the God who
shares your name tells you, "wait until you meet Veronica.
she's just like us."

and you smile, but we end the night early, leaving
a party in mid-swing, because perhaps we do not want
to know the truth, that these pretending-not-to-be-innocent
teenagers are no happier than we
have ever been. but we have lived four years tonight,
trying to repair lifetimes we cannot forget.

and i would like to say something poetic, but the words in my head
only echo,
i kep' on hittin' and the change just keep comin'.

11/08/2002

Author's Note: This isn't my usual style, but I'm kinda liking it... still doesn't feel finished, though. Suggestions are quite welcome; please message me. ~MCP

Posted on 11/09/2002
Copyright © 2024 Meredith C Hartwell

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by Ken Harnisch on 11/12/02 at 06:37 AM

i like the freefall and the free form....keep stirring the leaves with experiments like this...this is amazing and insightful poetry

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