This is my first poem for the blog, 'February'. Please leave constructive criticism if you feel like it.
FEBURARY.
February in school
After secret time indulging the child you clumsily barged past
Stoically, you trudge the daily walk to and from
Spent in deep discussion and hunger.
The month before and the one to come
Are alien and not yet begun.
Lines of faces slip into a silent order, like the chemicals you learnt about,
Some float to the top.
Then, you did not question apparent natural reaction, but
Later, you'll see, in the corner of your eye, one spill poison on himself.
Meanwhile, you sit,
Screaming and laughing and chewing your nails and longing,
To be a snail in the rain who chooses his own destiny.
But the mass deny you and the majority decide your fate.
Icy breath respires, released behind your back,
The howling wind whistles, deafens teachers ears and lulls them into sleep and dreams
Of creeping March sunshine. They do Nothing.
Yet you try, with smoke signals and fire alarms to tell them why, your eyes are shivering Like lakes.
But your panging heart throbs on
And the frozen gates are locked,
Presently, it is February,
And solidly (asides from your unspoken fantasies) you think of everything and nothing but One day to the next and the branches are still bare and black, they are brittle, like you.
Still, you traipse past those little landmarks.
Unnoticed go the people of your parent’s age, who speak of
'The rain', 'the snow', the 'Baltic breeze',
'The First Snowdrops'. These,
Make sounds, but leave no tracks. You are yet to uncover this disguise, their code.
Blindly you fumble and blow into a new, serge, of life.
You march past, still. Fighting to be on time,
Sweating more than you ever have before, later making your thighs stick together
After sixty minutes on the plastic curve of your seat;
Praying you haven’t left a mark or a stain, God forbid your fluid be seen let alone remain, Or your sex and age breathe along with your name.
Lunchtime. You hold hands and shut your eyes, willing that you did it right.
And hoping; that those girls saw.
You hear one girl say something which makes your insides wring, like a wet cloth,
It settled like salt.
And took years to dissolve.
The River Ouse, Cambridgeshire. February 2011
