First Day of My Life

12/16/06

Emerging from the liberal womb
Of college,
Unprepared for the conservative mind
Of my hometown.
Cat-calls and whistles,
Walking down the street.
Staring at them
As if they are crazy,
They have no mind,
They have no thought,
They have no soul.
Just sex, sex, sex—
With a lesbian.
Fight and scream,
Fight and scream—
You can’t have me
Damn it.

Misting rain,
Snow long gone,
Cool temperature—
Miss the warm nights of
My dorm, my home.
Miss my friends,
Miss people who understand.
Miss my wireless connection.
Cut off from my world,
Cut off from my sites,
Cut off from the people who make my life
Real, exciting,
Miss the people I know,
Miss the people I know only through
IMs and photographs.

Longing to be back,
Longing to stay.
The first day out of the womb,
It’s the first day of my life.

The life I used to know
So very well.
The life I used to feel
So comfortable living.
Now—
I walk in a stranger’s shoes.
So very strange and unknown.
This life I used to lead,
I lead no longer.
Times have changed,
My friends have changed.
The people that used to know me
So well,
So very well—
I now look at through a stranger’s eyes.
I know this town no longer.
Dismissed as an outsider,
I live here no longer.
I have no place,
I have no fit into this small town.
Longing for the days back.
Back of late nights
And long IM conversations.
Back of the days
Of sleeping and
Cutting class and
Having dinner with friends and
Laughing with professors and
Seeing beautiful women and
Seeing old flames and
Spending the night in my dorm, friends’ places.

Where have those days gone?
It’s the first day out of the womb
Of my liberal college,
It’s the first day out of the womb
Of my safety net,
It’s the first day out of the womb
Of the life I have become accustomed to.
It’s the first day of my life.