When I was around 13 I was immersed in hormones: my own and those of all my schoolmates. What had started in 4th and 5th grades as the occasional crush in the unusual kid then grew prevalent. Everybody was eying everyone else, either as a love object or a similar wisher.
I didn’t get it. I’d read a lot and I’d had a couple of boyfriends and certainly I planned to be in love before too long, but it seemed like my friends were pushing it, trying to like for the sake of having someone to like.
As I got older and got to counseling my buddies about parents and homework and mostly about dating, I continued to encounter the anyone’s-better-than-nobody syndrome and I found it beyond my powers to defeat.
It was like the nursery game of musical chairs.
Eventually I wondered if that game reflected reality or refracted child intentions.
And even more eventually, like 30 years later, I tried to capture the question in a poem.
A loop of chairs is centered in the room
and round the loop the children promenade
to simple party music, till the tune
is cut abruptly. As the measures fade
each child darts to sit upon a chair,
but furniture is less than kids by one.
So squeals in place of music fill the air,
and sitting’s an emphatic form of fun.
The kids are early taught to play that game
and seem to keep the lesson they are shown,
for adolescent linking feels the same:
latch on to someone, quick, or be alone.
I wonder if the race is wisely planned
that prizes seats when some would rather stand.
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