Michael

He sits across from me in science class,

staring out the window at the paling autumn grass,

his friend draws him out of his stupor

with gentle poke and smile to pull

him out of his silent inner mass.

I am yearning in the core

of the chambers of my heart

for him; his solemn, studious countenance

stirs my young, innocent soul into feeling.

I shoot a surreptitious glance

his way, hoping he doesn't know

that I am still reeling

from the last time he smiled at me.

I sit still and gaze

at his perfect quiet face

and inky raven hair,

and etch him into my heart.

I do not want to miss

any detail of him, from the range

of his voice to the sweet melodies

of his violin; him in my soul I want to capture,

for he really is quite rare,

a boy of gentle words and quick mind.

And as I think these thoughts, I cannot help but start

fantasizing of having him as my first kiss,

around mine his fingers wind,

while for joy I would be leaping.

Millions of fantasies, all are sweeping

through my mind; (Though I have yet

to experience love, I can still pretend,

as most children do,

that we are in rapture- rapture!

Such an old, meaningful word we cannot understand,

yet we throw it around as though it were new;

Rapture-is it lust?-love's first brazen-coloured hue-

or is it love, a substance so wonderous and true,

that lovely thing that-alas!- must die or bend

because of circumstances that have changed?)

Slipping at times I feel I am,

into an ever-lasting white

of vacuity, the anonymity of modern life

-emotion or comfort it is devoid of-

blank as the essay paper to be written

each year before Christmastime,

the only cure for which is love.

Like lovely flowers off a dirty road

peers of mine are picked out

by members of the other sex

for their radiance and beauty

and both ease each other's existence,

if only for a few weeks, the life span

of middle school infatuation.

Even if that "romance" does end, surely

for the beautiful there is another one yet coming.

When these seeds of romance are sowed

between the comely and the fair,

the dull, the silent are left

to stay, just as they always were,

plain, wilting flowers by the side of the road.

In the game struggle onward,

the only balm in Gilead seems to be

high school, like the Eden for children,

a magical, extraordinary place where

people there are so numerous of,

so even the homely have a chance

for that oasis in the desert,

romance. The only light

at the end of the never-ending

tunnel of studies, learning, competing

for the highest marks seems to be that curt

word after a long speech,

warm sweater on a blust'ry day,

romance.

Some say we are nothing but infants

and can understand nothing about the adult

feeling of love between a man and a woman.

Not so! We cry, and try to make our own

romance, which shudders and falls after so very few days.

It will not be such with Michael and I!

Through my hazy-flavoured dreaming,

there is a certain seeming

in the bottom of my soul

that I one day shall be with him.

We shall show the world

that through "children" such a perfect

romance can be grown!

He will approach me oh-so-cautious

and ask me for my hand

and take me down that treach'rous path

full of thorns and bushes known as love!

From the peaceful fields of young

relationship's sweet heaven to the

narrow, winding pathways of the wrath

that ends them all,

we shall make it through!

And when the long toil-heated days are done,

we will look at each other and think,

in our triumphant ecstasy,

we made it!

we made it!

we made it!

Through the curving valleys and steep mountains of our love.

And so in long, deep, sweet days,

proverbially, among the lilies,

we shall spend the rest of our lives together,

reminiscing, laughing, and loving,

my dear Michael and I.