Nineteen

At nineteen, I wasn't like this.

I didn't talk innuendo;
I didn’t know how.
and I just knew, love was waiting
for me to graduate.

At nineteen, I did not practice verbosity.

I wrote for intra-mural participation certificates.
I wrote, for they told me, I had poetry in me…
Terrible rhymes, I wrote, contorted into lameness
in the effort to rhyme.

At nineteen, I was not a funny shape.
I was not plump and thin, smooth and scarred.
I worked, resisted work,
And hid in the bathroom. Tears -
my shame and pride.

At nineteen, I had no tricky charm.
I smiled rarely, if at all.

I grasped the world, without grabbing it,
nor grappling for my two column worth in it.

At nineteen, I wasn't homeless,
nor Godless.
I knew a home and took a bus back.
Fought one God in a chapel and found another tramping in the Dargah.

At nineteen, I strained at the leash that was me.
At nineteen, I waited for life.

Written long, long ago... I wrote bad poetry, much beyond nineteen.