Basic Teenage Angst

Basic Teenage Angst

(from Thoughts Forming – January 18th, 1990)

It starts off black:

Think with darkness

Void from sound

Bereft of scent

Numb to feeling

Light appears:

A vibrant green

A joyful yellow

A painful red

A sorrowful blue

Images form:

The outline of eyelashes

The trees outside the window

The cars moving down the road

A face from the past

Recollections stir:

The face is a girls

The girl was once loved

A love freely given

but never returned

Emotion burns:

Warmth for physical beauty

Frustration from abject rejection

Anger for self-demoralization

Curiosity from implied possibilities

Questions repeat:

Where is she now?

I don’t know.

How has she changed?

I don’t know.

Would it work now?

I don’t know.

by M. Perron (Originally Written June 10th, 1993)

Notes: First, I’ve forgotten that Thoughts Forming was the title of a book I was hoping to write… in retrospect, there would have been no way it wouldn’t have come off as a blatant plagiarism of Catcher in the Rye… I’m glad I lost, or tossed the original notes and writing on it. Second, this is clearly not about me, at least not me at that time… I was 26 and while still a bit of a twit, not in anyway a teenager with the accompanying angst. In fact, i’m sure I was quite a conservative bore at this time. Finally, it was still fun to write with a different voice in my mind… this character’s voice… even if I was, well, pretending to be Holden Caulfield.