FebulousFebruary 2025: Lost and Found

17-7-70

As a man of seventy, 

I think of the boy of 17. 

I think too of the boy age 7. 

So long ago, yet so recent. 

Memories still surface, of events before adolescence.  

Fears, fun, freaking out at stupid things, if only I had been stronger… 

Bodies metamorphose in ten years, 

The joys for boys age seven, are toys and tricks and treats. 

For the boychild, the merest ‘ten years older,’ things have changed so much. 

Teddies and lollies, toy cars and kids stuff, condemned to the cupboard. 

Bodies grow stronger, desires all grow bolder. 

Boys seek out girls girls seek out boys. 

Unless you’re not normal. 

“Normal?” What could ‘normal’ mean. 

A penury of loneliness, Darkness descends every waking hour, shoving you into a cupboard, a soulless existence, experienced by Teddies worldwide. 

His cupboard is a tomb, 

a closet, by name undecided, 

an island, 

a well, 

a desert. 

A hellhole for loneliness and pain, wanton self destruction just lurks there, 

gorging on loneliness and desire. 

Till come the moment boychild can grow some more. 

Girlchild can feel this too, equally lost, equally lonely, crying, and all alone. 

Perceptions, realisations, the comfort of a friend, parents support, ‘if you’re lucky!’ 

But if you’re not? Seventeen creeps to twenty one, Twenty three the next primary number, the next primary year in ageing. 

Aged then ticking to 70, looking back becomes a regular occupation. 

Remember this? Remember that? Remember what? What happened to him? 

Remember that first love of growing, kissing a boy, kissing a girl. 

Maybe a dare, maybe a care. Let yourself go, unbuckle the chest you locked yourself in. Open the closet, cuddle old Teddy in your mind. 

And in that moment of freedom, take a step, a tentative step, and maybe like this old man of seventy, if your lucky, that’s true, life won’t seem quite so bad. 

Everything started with a small step, everything demands something of you. 

But remember then your first loves, toys and cars and bears

Remember how you grew to love them, likewise you made your own luck, You gave yourselves some talking to, 

But mostly, you gave yourself, a ‘Hug.’

Peter Cronin-Hill ( composed 1st February 2024)

Whitstable.