High School
A poem
Out in the quad, they snarled at my nerve system
Promoted an inner rhythm with
ghostly voices screaming that I didn’t belong
that the tenderness I longed for was wrong
My inner bleedings so neglected at home
relegated to the unconscious to roam,
I roamed the halls for tending, for teaching
for soothing my wounds and showing me how I could begin reaching
I showed up to school with a psyche half-developed
and in anxiety I was enveloped
I did not reach toward the kind ones, did not know how
something I’ve painstakingly learned to be more versed in now
I remember that lunchtime jungle,
selfishness and hormones, echoes of primates, in a bundle
I ruminated on what mood should I exude
to get a smile before being overtaken by my own bitter attitude
I’d walk and, I’d walk
see that the cliques were on lock
I felt unseen and forsaken
my radar seemingly broken
How to get those golden balmy friendships
I couldn’t come to grips
with that stuff inside, my bloody needs
It all seemed to mock my adolescent seeds
High School you were an expansive time
to the void inside my heart, I might say it was a crime
but life is a complex art to chart
a nexus that no religion could fully answer end to start
with time I learned to seek for the just and tender ones
and to listen for the introjects like a Buddhist nun
hearing what I needed from a wiser view
found me a therapist trustworthy and true
I’m less of a spectator now, I feel greater, more of a co-creator
though decades later
and in this story
there is no proverb for ultimate glory
just real
my commitment to think and feel
classmates with blemishes, surface and deep
me as well, it’s complex what I reap
and I’m just learning what I’ve sown
It’s a journey, intricately complex, with a shapeshifting unknown
—
I am an American born in Ukraine. I think often about high school and how it has shaped me. This is my attempt at processing my experience and hopefully connecting with others around less-than-ideal adolescent experiences. I feel tenderly toward my high school self and hope I can have the opportunity to empathize with the experiences of others. I don’t usually try to rhyme my poems so I was trying something different this time.
