Onwards

Having recently turned eighteen, I really wanted to write a poem about growing up and the difference between "then" and "now." Obviously a project like this is full of potential clichés -- it's a cliché in itself -- but I still wanted it to be heartfelt, and I hope it comes across that way even if the poetry itself is terrible.

A few notes on the composition of the poem:

• All of the quotes are from Patrick Wolf's album The Bachelor, which, like much of Patrick's music, contains the running themes of maturing, ageing and life as a journey and a battle.
• Section "Cc" is taken from a much longer poem I wrote, called Shadow Girl, which is basically about pathetic teenage angst and sexual frustration! I copied the bits which I thought made sense without the rest of the poem because I think I couldn't write a poem about growing up without this aspect of youth; and I couldn't be bothered to write an original new section.

Please try not to judge the poetry, it's more the ideas that I'm trying to express.

Cringe! J xxx

Onwards

“When all else fails

Remember

Always

The Open Road.”

Aa

“What keeps you? Explore!”

Funny, how my exploration was restricted

To the playground and yet I was

Never constrained.

In my lack of freedom I was free.

My body was decorated, almost tattooed

With grazes and bruises and splitting skin.

The girl with blonde hair

Bore the purpling bites of my milk teeth.

Supposedly I was, and am, a blank

Canvas with infinite possibilities

Yet conscience killed innocence

And paint can only hide the stains.

Strange, how there were more wounds

In those days but more soreness now.

There’s greater depth today yet

Less immersion in the abyss of the soul.

Bb

“You are not the maker nor the master of me.”

I roll the dice and move forward,

Clutching at my pride as I leap.

Occasionally I stumble across a ladder

And I ascend.

Even in nightmares I never expected

The snakes to come.

I try not to slide but I have no grip,

And I shield my eyes through the fall.

Still I walk tall through the maze,

Negotiating the twists and turns

As the dice goes on rolling

And the world keeps on turning.

Cc

“I don’t fear what tomorrow may take

Stay blind to my future and fate.”

Growing pains,

Shrinking pleasures?

From beneath the layers of my eclectic thoughts

You watch me take steps on my egg-shells,

Already fragmented dreams cracking anew.

I’m stumbling without you yet you’re ever-present,

Regarding my clumsiness with your dream-eyes.

I’m trying to conjure emotion from your non-existence.

“Come to me more, even come to me at all…”

My words echo in their own cold emptiness and

Deep within my sleep they come back and haunt me.

Pandora-like, I cling to the trace of hope flittering inside

And watch the faint flap of its wings as it circles around

My head and all the conflicting nonsense within my skull.

Dd

“Battle the patriarch, battle for equal rights, battle back your liberty, battle back the long night, battle the conservative, battle for your, battle the homophobe, but battle without war.”

The sparrow sings when it realises

That every bird is caged,

Every wing is clipped,

Every soul is lost.

We cannot know.

Adulthood is acknowledging the enigma.

We fight, we fight because without a fight

We are nothing.

And when we have fought we will anchor

Ourselves and

Sleep.