Please indulge a proud father as I share the wonderful poem my 14-year old daughter read last night at our church’s art show:
Dance of Love?
We dance under black blankets of sky
Hands on big hips full of potential
That bruise soft flesh
Far too close for comfort
And I know this is not my dream
We are a living in a fantasy
A lie all the same
Too caught up to notice just how far under I’m slipping
It’s not like you care anyone
Don’t we both know it’s all a publicity stunt
Advertising the latest and greatest attraction
Though the script is flimsy,
The plot all-together see through
It deserves an Oscar just for the acting
Pretending is not something I or you will ever be new to
In cafeteria girls giggle over forget-me-nots, summer days and lazy boy dreams
Trying to forget the fact that boys with hungry eyes is not what they desire
They stare at us with hormone induced lust
Across miles of food-scattered floors
They still find a way to make me feel violated
Shorts that could have easily been found
In Chris Browns newest and nudist music video pique their interest
We like to pretend they stare at our eyes
Not our bodies with longing
But it is the hour glass figure
Not the contour of our smile
That gets them every time
Our passionate lip-lock is not really true love
But we make it all too easy for them
Our school has caught the love bug
Or so they say
The infectious disease of perfumed notes
And staying out far past curfew
I’m beginning to lose hope in the cure
I can’t help but miss the days of wide-eyed smile and toothless grins
When I would chase boys across the playground with puckered up lips
It was a game then but now it’s a battleground
Tactics and warfare to win over an unwilling heart
I am not some prize
I refuse to be won
I remember when holding hands seemed like enough of a scandal
And going way too far was not even a plausible option
So is this love?
They way he sticks his tongue down her throat
After she finishes HIS algebra homework
She longs for his affections
And he knows that all too well
Wondering why church on Sundays won’t sooth that guilty conscience
It’s not a quick fix
But don’t we all wish it was
Her high heels click on the floor
Along with a perpetually receding hemline
And shirts that seem to shrink in the wash
She can tear at my soul for hours
But my solutions never seem realistic
But still I will dance with the new him in my life
To a song that he claims will belong to us forever
Although forever seems to depend on where I’ll let his hands touch
Because charming personalities
Lose interest all too fast
In a quick pace world of physical attraction
I’m finding that the me in myself had no place
Pretending that it fills the empty chasm
Where the part of me that made me whole used to lie
Because I am hungry for more than just food
Stomach rumbling in discontent
But I will choose to ignore it
Because this is how I’ve been told it should be
Because this dance is my new always
