Prom anyone?

It's spring,

every spring is the time,
in high school student's lives,
across the United States,
is prom.

This is a time where,
if you are insecure,
and what kid isn't,
it will be intensified.

Your reputation is on the line.

It's do or die.

School's culmination has come to this point,
and it's suppose to count.

I never went to my senior prom.
I wasn't interested.
I didn't want to "buy" into it.
I wanted to be a radical.
Just writing that statement makes me laugh.

Truth was

I wasn't asked.

Instead my girlfriend an I choose to sip slow gin and sprite in my car,
watching, as class mates entered the hotel where it was held.

The scene was surreal, like a movie,
boys in tuxedos girls in gowns, flowers, crowns, and fancy cars.

I think that when faced with the emotion of being a teen,
high hormones,
the ability to make drama out of nothing,
we can look back and laugh.

Like the day all teens are to wed.

I'm not sorry I didn't go,

I'm sure we weren't alone in our lack of participation.

If you are one of the graduates which decides not to participate
in this event called prom,
it's okay.
We all became adults anyway,
With or without the "right of passage" that is called the prom.

I didn't fit in.

Not part of a group,
Being a radical...
I worked after school,
I enjoyed my car, my small freedoms, and my music and my art.

Having had a wedding,

in which I wore a gown, with flowers an had a fancy car, and a man in a tuxedo.

Life marched on.


We all can live life happier,
leaving the angst of high school behind,
just writing this,
gives me those familiar pangs of the intensity,
of how it was,
and how much we worried about what others thought of us.

The one thing I need to say is
that while writing this I left out,
how costly this can be, especially now,
not just in the emotional sense,
but financially.

This event can stigmatize you,
just because your family is not in a high income bracket.

Be a radical,
go if you want,
go in a group,
on the bus,
in your best jeans,
steal flowers from the local cemetery,

the dead do not mind.

Don't "buy" into the limo ride,
designer dress,
top end tux.
High priced nosegays.

Have fun!
Be the non-conformist.

You'll get all the drama you will ever need or want.


Enjoying the little things now, I write.

I'm still a radical...

I attend political rallies,
I read,
I protest,
I get involved.


My mission now is to live life gracefully,

make art,

and to spread as much love, peace and fun as I can.

Dance on,

Janice