My Beautiful Nymphomaniac

One poem. Growing up.

It’s my birthday.
I am fifteen wishing I was twenty,
I am with Julienne
walking up Washington Street, 
and she is definitely twenty, 
or maybe even older, 
and I love her, and to me 
she is everything, everything, everything.

My mom says she is a nymphomaniac-
but I don’t know what that means.
My best friend Russ and I agree: 
a nymphomaniac likes having lots of sex,
and I am walking up the street beside Julienne
because I want her to have lots of sex with me.

But around me, she acts absolutely normal,
like a girl should act, not like the girls 
in my class, and I don’t care that she doesn’t act
all the time like a nymphomaniac,  
because she is beautiful with suntan skin,
long brown hair and strands that seem to float
in the stifling summer air,
and today she has a yellow daisy near her ear, 
and she wears red lipstick that grabs you inside,
along with her dark eyebrows and sparkly hazel eyes.

And her breasts, Julienne’s breasts are everything   
I could ever want, bouncing firm and free  
under her strapless summer dress,
a soft dress with highlights of red and green flowers, 
and her toe nails poke ruby red from out of her sandals,
and I can hardly believe my luck walking beside her.

She is a goddess who makes me feel like I am somebody,
not just a stupid kid who turned fifteen 
as we walk together past the college campus
in the white heat of a weekday afternoon.

She represents everything I want 
a girlfriend to be.
Oh god, if she would only stay forever beside me,
walking up Washington Street, 
and the street is full of freaks,
long-hairs, and hipsters so cool - 
nobody thinks of anything, like school,
but they see us and she is with me.  

Just being beside her is like I’ve aged, 
and, with her, I am a hipster too,
not a kid in a wrinkly t-shirt
that says Get Smart,
wearing stupid-looking madras shorts,
and clomping along with hairy legs
and feet too big for my old sneakers.

On this sidewalk, right now, I am alive, 
and I want to cry with happiness-
and not just because my mom
says Julienne is a nymphomaniac.

To me, Julienne is so worldly and wise,
and she talks as if we are equals, 
regardless of our ages and whether or not 
I am a guy, and she is smart and an artist
and someone who sees the world 
in a bouquet of hand-picked flowers.

She tells me she is heading to Chicago, 
because everyone is going to be there
at the Democratic National Convention.
and I am shocked,
I didn’t know this and now that I am fifteen,
I should know all about this.

We need to stop the war, she says.
Soon the pigs will come for you.
We can no longer sit on the sidelines. 
Black men and all my friends are dying.

I will have to ask my mother,
and, I know, my mom won’t let me go.
I flunked ninth grade and she is so
mad at me, she won’t let me do anything
but sit in summer school every morning,
even on my birthday.

Mom says I’m not dumb and thinks
I flunked to spite her, but, she says,
I’ve got to get into tenth grade this summer, 
because I'm just like my sisters and brother -
she can’t take it anymore.

But maybe she’ll think this is a smart thing
to do, even if I miss a few classes 
of geometry and earth and space science,
like I did during the school year,
smoking cigarettes behind the ball fields.

But I have no choice if I want to be 
with Julienne in Chicago.
I want to soak in her aura protesting the war.
I want to march with her passing out flowers.
I want to light hundreds of candles.
I want to lie with her in a sleeping bag
so she can show me, finally, 
what it feels like to be alive.

My best friend Russ and me
swore an oath as twelve-year-old’s 
not to die virgins. 
Now I am fifteen
and my odds are increasing
of getting drafted one day,
but being in Chicago with Julienne 
could change everything.

Bruce from school told me
he went to Julienne’s earlier this summer
to buy some pot
and she was lying naked
on her couch. 
He nearly fainted.
She was with some guy with his penis hanging out.

Two weeks ago Bruce told me it wasn’t her 
but someone else, 
but I have imagined
Julienne naked on her couch 
sharing a joint with me and my penis hanging out
all summer. Even now I think of us together
walking up Washington Street.

My hands are so tingly and hairy, 
I shove them into my shorts before she sees.

We are close to her apartment 
and I can’t think what to say.
In the silence, she asks me what I’m thinking -
the war, Chicago, getting murdered 
by the industrial-military machine?

I tell her, It’s my birthday.

She asks how old I am and I say nineteen.
She smiles at that and says Happy Birthday.

She’s quiet now. Why did I say anything?

Maybe she’ll invite me
to celebrate in her apartment. 
I could share my birthday joint with her.
I have one in my wallet that I saved
for today that my older sisters gave me.
No girl other than my sisters
have ever shared a joint with me.
I have never even seen a girl
smoke a joint, other than my sisters,
but they don’t count,  
even though they often have weed
and will give some to Russ and me.

My sisters don’t know Julienne,
but the pot is nice 
when I work as a busboy at night
in my family’s pub,
and Julienne waves to me 
coming in the door.
When she leaves, 
she’s always with another guy.
She’s not as friendly to me, maybe even sad
when we catch each other’s eyes.

I overheard my mom tell the bartender
and several waitresses
Julienne must be the town’s
nymphomaniac.

My older brother Charley, 
who has a ton of Playboys under his bed, 
says, so what, better than being
a stuck up tease like so many girls can be.

Julienne asks me where I am going?  
She stops at the walkway to her apartment. 
She is smiling, again, at me and, inside, 
I am quivering. I say, I dunno. 
Though I was walking uptown to buy comics
with the five dollars in the card 
my great aunt sent me.

I am tired of growing up last
in my family. 
Stuck being at home.
I hate this town.
and I don’t want to celebrate my birthday around a picnic table
at the lake this weekend.

Julienne says, you are the only guy I trust.
You’re always watching out for me.
Always, Julienne.
But, I stammer, I am not nineteen.
She pulls the daisy out of her hair.
I know, she says, you’re so much older.

She hands me her yellow flower.
Happy Birthday, kid. Maybe I’ll see you in Chicago.
I say, I hope so! and I do. I do. I do.
I make this my secret birthday wish.
Take me. Take me away with you. 

Still, I know, I’ll be busing tables for my mother
the rest of the summer.

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