Youth

Writer's Cramp

NEW PROMPT:
Write a STORY or POEM that begins with the following line:

Youth certainly is wasted on the young ...

Remember to include a word count for your story, and keep poems to 40 lines or less - thanks!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Youth

Youth certainly is wasted on the young. I’ve felt that way off and on for the last 127 years. Granted that it wasn’t until I’d reached the advanced age of 27 that this truth finally dawned on me. Before that I doubt if I’d thought about it at all. Youthful skin, springy limbs, and teeth that I used as bottle openers, they were just facts, by-products of being alive.

Ah, those were the days -- the days when I was broke, immature, and high on hormones. And stupid, of course. Oh, so very stupid.

Christine was with me then. Christine with the purple tattoos on her right cheek, tattoos that showed vines climbing clear across her nose and into her nostrils. What had I ever seen in her? I sometimes asked myself as the years seeped deep inside me, polluted as city sewage water.

At least, that question always made me laugh. I laughed at myself. A sour, sickly laugh, for the truth is that I never stopped remembering what I’d seen in Christine. I was never that ancient, never that stupid. Christine smelled of plums, ripe plums. Her hair, purple as her tattoos, was soft and hung down all the way to her adorable little bottom. Her hair was her Lady Godiva ware, covering her most teasingly when she paraded for me, wiggling like a frenzied date palm. And then when she held me with her arms and squeezed, any common sense I’d had back then, used to run clear out through the pads of my toes.

Ah, youth wasn’t wasted on my body then. I used it well. Used it up, in fact. After Christine, there was Martha, and Joanne. I became a conductor of body parts, orchestrating symphonies. But all of those pitiful productions ended with tears and acid words.

I wasn’t smart enough to recognize it then, but Christine was the root. That darn purple tattoo of hers had vined itself inside my heart, along with kisses and the soft whispers of her love. Christine taught me that youth leads into maturity, and that bitterness is its source,

One night Christine didn’t come home. She left an e-mail. <<Off to Vegas. Soon will be Mrs. Strebenough.>>

I know how a tree falls, its bark serrated by jagged teeth. I fell that day, crashing into Martha and then Joanne. But that was that. A tree, once unrooted, never reaches to the sky again. Never feels the sunshine or reaps its benefits.

I married Joanne, as if I believed that love was no more than a graft that can be transplanted. For a while Joanne and I soothed each other’s bodies. We played at house. We purchased, acquired, and breakfasted with dishes that matched. But even though our union sprouted in a child, we leaned apart. Even weeds can tell when the soil is sterile.

My daughter, little Chrissy, brought occasional smiles, but I was dry inside, spent as if the years to maturity had stolen the sap from my soul. You see, I had no spot of purple, no plum-scent to prevent the withering of time.

Waste. Such a waste. I was old at seventy. My back ached. My feet shuffled. My life had reached the state of numbness, where, alone, I simply waited for my gate of departure. But fate rarely heeds the wishes of dried-up old men.

At seventy-nine I saw her again. The tattoos on her cheek had blossomed. Tiny purple buds were even flowering about her neck. I wept in silence at the sight of her. I wept for my youth and for the careless way I’d lost all that really mattered. Then I shuffled towards her and touched the hand that I’d long ago known so well.

The vines had spread from her face downward. Her fingers now, too, were saturated with plum nectar. Etched leaves danced across her veins.

“Mrs. Strebenough,” I said, as I lifted her palm to my mouth. “How I have missed you.”

“But you are old,” she said. “Old and dry as the desert wind.”

Her voice was cruel, yet in her eyes she spoke a different song, one I could almost catch within the chamber of my heart.

“I am old and wiser now,” I said, then clamped my teeth shut.

Youth certainly is wasted on the young, but maturity ages well. I lived to witness the tiny newborn blossoms of love. In fact, I have had them grafted all over my body. Christine says that now the years are falling away from my shuffle, but I do not care if age brings aches and shuffles, not as long as Christine’s eyes smile into mine.

My wife’s purple hair no longer plays peek-a-boo with the nakedness of her body. Her grasp when she holds me is not like it was when we were young. Yet, it is far sweeter now, for together we are finally learning how to flower.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(822 words)


Please drop by my webpage:


{http://karenriggin.com/my-blog.html}

My blog is a writing blog, where I add chapters.

Currently in its rough draft stage is my NaNo 2013 novel: The Downside of Solar Panels -- a young witch decides to install solar panels on the cottage where she lives. But how can she achieve her goal of financial independence when a warlock, werewolves, ghosts and a neighborhood vampire keep intruding?