November 21st, 2017

Photo source: https://www.today.com/news/photographer-searches-owner-stunning-vintage-photos-found-virginia-thrift-store-t36071

​Girl Never Loved

​What does she do, the Girl who's never loved?
Dolly dress-up; Little Girl poison in plastic tea cups -
Grow up Pretty and Be Loved.
Heavy burden for beauty potions. She sticks out.
Splintered, warped and curled up
Wanting to fit Somewhere.

She's lived a whole lot longer than she wished.
Once Fresh, Pert, Winsome and Young. She believed in Love.
Had her Hands in it. Breathed her Body with it. Now Ancient
Winters turn Desolate Springs into Artificial Paradise waiting rooms.
Twisting. Moaning, until You ask. No, No, No!
Grown-Up Girl, it's too late.

Throw Your Eyes to the Horizon. Softly sundown stare. Blankly stare
Until You realize with clear certainty,
You'll never be Loved.
Never RIGHT at the Right Time, She sighs.
Wrong Look. Wrong Body. Wrong Clothes. Wrong Face.
Wrong Tone. Wrong Speed. Wrong Voice. Wrong Wit.

Standing at the River; Curious -
Her Bloated Body. Gnarled Limbs. Mind drips in moments.
Colossal pools swirl the back of her Throat. Gulping, weightless
Tangled globs. Floating mass extinction. Decadent dream coiling 'round Her.
Debris-congealed sarcophagus coming closer.
THIS Love She Finds!

Traded Land for pools of Delicious Drowning.
Clothes clinging. Hair matted. Lost shoe. Dripping sleeve. Stained Smile.
Stunned surrender. Relieved sigh.
Grey-White Arm flapping mercilessly.
Stilled. Swollen. Decayed. Floating.
Such Elegy for a Girl who's never Loved.

Flings herself into Wild Baptism -
First Frigid Toe in tidal surrender. Glossy, soda pop dream;
Cold Lover's wet Kiss. Little Girl poison remedy come quick!
Hair splayed thousand-tentacled array.
Fallen in. Tumbled through. Swift gurgling fright.
She, who will never be Loved.

JFH (c) 11.12.2017

"The sea will drum my ears.... shoulder me under. Everything falls in tremendous shower, dissolving me."
- Virginia Woolf, The Waves