Sixteen will never return
But memories are lasered
Throughout the brain’s cortex
Faces, songs, snippets of conversations
Big PJ party in NJ
After living in PA
Until age 15
Now starting new friendships
What better way than to unite
My old and new friends?
Lynn is my new best New Jersey friend
She wants to be an actress
See her here? Long hair, tall, beautiful
And she actually likes me! Me, so boring
So serious
Writing “God is Dead” in my diary
Copying the Existential JP Sartre
Whose name is unpronounceable
Like is it Sart or Sartray or Sarter?
Yet, I should be writing about boys
I have a crush on. But no, cannot do that
Always have to challenge myself, be different
But my Philly friend Arlene, one of the popular girls,
Is impressed with my words (thanks, Arlene!)
And my Philly friend Wilma is used to my nuttiness
(Thanks, Wilma!) We’re singing partners on long summer porch nights
And Madi, my cousin’s cuz, you may have been there too
Laughing along with me. We both loved to laugh (thanks, Madi!)
Lynn organizes us
She says, “Let’s put on the ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ album
And do the parts! I’ll be Ann Margaret!”
So here are a bunch of sixteen year olds
All kinds of sizes, all kinds of faces
Lined up on the Broadway stage of my parents’ new home
Singing, “Did you hear about Hugo and Kim? Did she really get pinned?
Did she kiss him and sigh? Did he pin the pin on? Or was he too shy?”
Oh, how I secretly craved to have a boyfriend like Hugo who loved me!
Oh, how I now realize we ALL secretly craved to have a boyfriend like Hugo who loved us!
We danced the next hour, singing and laughing
My poor parents had to work the next day
But they battened down the hatches in the bedroom
And let us let loose
After pizza and soda
(No one knew or cared about cholesterol back then)
It was “West Side Story”
I wanted to be Anita
Sultry Rita Moreno
I knew all the words and it was my party
So I was Anita and Lynn was Maria
Then we became the Jets
Shining as we did “Cool”:
“Boy, boy, crazy boy, stay loose boy!”
Broadway, watch out for us!
In order to wind down we did
The “She looks like she’s asleep thing”
One person stretched out on the floor
The rest of us circled the “body”
Dark room, quiet
Each of us repeating from the previous:
“She looks like she’s asleep”
“She may be asleep”
“Do you think she’s asleep”
Finally ending with
“SHE IS ASLEEP”
Sliding two fingers from each hand
Under the “body” and lifting her up into the air!
Far out! What a magical group we were!
Levitators extraordinaire!
Eventually, most were stretched out on the floor
Gently snoring, eyes dancing in REM mode
I rarely slept and Lynn was the same
We went into my room, sat on the floor
Me smoking, she not
And talked about our futures
I would be a best-selling author, of course
And Lynn would be an Oscar-winning actress
The following week she called me from the hospital
Saying her mouth was bleeding and she had dark bruises
On her thin arms and legs
I went to the hospital next day
And we talked and laughed
Although her eyes were like full moons
Sailing through a purple-bruised sky
The next day another NJ friend called me
To say Lynn was dead from Leukemia
How to bear never to be able to laugh and talk to Lynn?
It will get easier, I was told
But this happened exactly 50 years ago
Why are tears trailing down my cheeks
As if it was yesterday?
© 2014 ViataMaja, Laminas (Poetic Memoirs)
poeturja 