Teenage Love Affair

*inspired by Alicia Keys' "Teenage Love Affair"
**I wanted a picture of some high school black kids, but this was the best I could get

If I had the choice, I would go back in time
And love you on some high school shit
I wanna walk way outta my way just to see you before class
Spend my day writing love notes to pass
I wanna make my friends sick with our inside jokes and infectious love
143s and 831s
If its puppy love, then let's be dalmatians
I play Perdita, be my Pongo
Counting 101 reasons to be together
Despite Cruella de Vil
Something so innocent, pure and sweet
Something you can't get off the street
I wanna blush at the thought of you thinking of me thinking of us
Sneak off with you after school and miss my fuckin' bus
I wanna put my first and your surname together, making sure it don't sound wack
Buying notebooks for the sole purpose of writing our initials on the back
A beautiful thing when you hold my hand
Hearin' "Nah, she's not my girl, that there's my woman"
I giggle when you smile, swoon when you turn away
Wearing you letterman to school everyday
I want to play with the cord while we talk on the phone
Surprised that we stayed on the phone that long
I want to hear your smile, fall asleep on me, too
This is the way I want to love you
Where there is nothing to stop us but time and air
I'm a grown ass woman longing for a teenage love affair

Poetic Struggle

She knows it's time
So she grabs her pen ready to rhyme
& spit venom like snakes
But she's no King Cobra
Wanting to use hard curse words
So that listeners understand her frustration
A few Fuck Yous, Shits and Damns don't fill the void, no
Webster hasn't created a hard enough word
It's a wonder why
She wants to cry, she feels them in the wells of her eyes but they won't fall
They are the only thing in her body holding strong
It's so frustrating she wants to cry
Cry for all the relationships broken or lost all together
Cry for the societal standards pushed on her that she psychologically can't live up to
Fuck the physical
It would feel so good to shed a few tears
Because for once, something would be coming out of her body
Rather than being trapped within
& festering
Clinging to a love affair with words she searches for what she hasn't been given in the flesh
Understanding, reassuring words and unconditional love
For a broken pencil lead & a soul left for dead is a dangerous combination
Unsure of her desire to continue living this life, she contemplates mental suicide
A quick & painless disconnection between her mind & body, consciousness and physical being
Because for too long its felt like while the body reaps the benefits of the victory
Her mind is forced to deal with the clean up
She was always told her not to pick her scabs
But like a pure self-mutilator she eyed those fresh emotional scars as a rebellious way to show those in charge who really ran the show
And so she picked & picked until they bled, crying out for a new pencil lead
She figured the more she did, the sooner the numbness would erase the pain,
But the habit only served to enhance it
Each time creating a new reason to want to take out her own emotions
With a double dose of a No. 2
So she looked down at a blank page
A metaphysical representation of the way she feels inside
& she succumbs to the bittersweet poetry