A 14-Year Old Girl in Today's World

Please indulge a proud father as I share the wonderful poem my 14-year old daughter read last night at our church's art show:

Dance of Love?

We dance under black blankets of sky

Hands on big hips full of potential

That bruise soft flesh

Far too close for comfort

And I know this is not my dream

We are a living in a fantasy

A lie all the same

Too caught up to notice just how far under I'm slipping

It's not like you care anyone

Don't we both know it's all a publicity stunt

Advertising the latest and greatest attraction

Though the script is flimsy,

The plot all-together see through

It deserves an Oscar just for the acting

Pretending is not something I or you will ever be new to

In cafeteria girls giggle over forget-me-nots, summer days and lazy boy dreams

Trying to forget the fact that boys with hungry eyes is not what they desire

They stare at us with hormone induced lust

Across miles of food-scattered floors

They still find a way to make me feel violated

Shorts that could have easily been found

In Chris Browns newest and nudist music video pique their interest

We like to pretend they stare at our eyes

Not our bodies with longing

But it is the hour glass figure

Not the contour of our smile

That gets them every time

Our passionate lip-lock is not really true love

But we make it all too easy for them

Our school has caught the love bug

Or so they say

The infectious disease of perfumed notes

And staying out far past curfew

I'm beginning to lose hope in the cure

I can't help but miss the days of wide-eyed smile and toothless grins

When I would chase boys across the playground with puckered up lips

It was a game then but now it's a battleground

Tactics and warfare to win over an unwilling heart

I am not some prize

I refuse to be won

I remember when holding hands seemed like enough of a scandal

And going way too far was not even a plausible option

So is this love?

They way he sticks his tongue down her throat

After she finishes HIS algebra homework

She longs for his affections

And he knows that all too well

Wondering why church on Sundays won't sooth that guilty conscience

It's not a quick fix

But don't we all wish it was

Her high heels click on the floor

Along with a perpetually receding hemline

And shirts that seem to shrink in the wash

She can tear at my soul for hours

But my solutions never seem realistic

But still I will dance with the new him in my life

To a song that he claims will belong to us forever

Although forever seems to depend on where I'll let his hands touch

Because charming personalities

Lose interest all too fast

In a quick pace world of physical attraction

I'm finding that the me in myself had no place

Pretending that it fills the empty chasm

Where the part of me that made me whole used to lie

Because I am hungry for more than just food

Stomach rumbling in discontent

But I will choose to ignore it

Because this is how I've been told it should be

Because this dance is my new always