Anti-authoritarianism

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Anti-Authoritarianism

My German-born father was rather strict and accustomed to getting his own way.   When I turned 14 and was about to graduate from junior high he wanted to send me to boarding school in Switzerland.  I refused, not wanting to leave my friends and family.

“It’s like the army,”  he retorted,  “and I’m the general and you’re the private.”

“Then I’m going AWOL.”   I said.

That September I enrolled at Forest Hills High,  my local neighborhood school.

 

The writer with unnamed Retro admin

– Danny L,  guest writer 

In Flannel Robes

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(Since the age of 11, all I valued in life was love, all I cared about was 

 finding my soulmate, my own true love – everything else was secondary)

 

All my life I wanted to know myself.

Place the answers inside a silver wand,

then if black rain ran over me

I could wave it to an infinite world.

 

There were wind children in my dream

who stood on the tops of lopsided hills,

at times all their innocence 

could sway the pain from my soul.

 

You were there of course

in flannel robes beneath the sky.

Each day you’d hold my trembling body

to be still against the rain.

 

At night I hid from you

afraid to touch the curls around your face,

afraid to look into your eyes

and see the reflection of my age.

 

I was young for you,

so I needed gypsy laughter with twilight ‘round my mind,

I needed golden rings to blaze across my life,

and all the hopes of my poor dreams to scare me.

 

I needed to know what not to do to meet you –

to step into the night and have you hold me,

to let the dream fall to its death beneath my feet.