Thursday 26 March 2020


Teenage Nights

by Julene Tripp Weaver


His name was Alex Hornblatt.
A thin boy with long brown hair.
He played guitar, read philosophy
lived in a brick house on the better
side of Queens than I. He was a runt
with a sharp tongue curved Jewish
smart. I walked by his house
listening for his guitar, Dylan
songs from his bedroom mixed with 
honeysuckle tinctured the night air.
My adolescent body swooned.
He never had a word to say to me.
My best friend indulged me to walk
past his house night after warm night
with nothing to do but wonder how
to knock on his door, what to say.
He invited us in when he heard we had pot.
The great entrance until he kissed my friend
in the corner, I sulked silently away.


* * * * *

"Teenage Nights" was previously published in Cliterature (Theme: Appetite, 2011).

Julene Tripp Weaver is a psychotherapist and writer in Seattle. She has three poetry books: truth be bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDSNo Father Can Save Her, and a chapbook, Case Walking: An AIDS Case Manager Wails Her Blues. She is widely published in journals and anthologies. A few online sites where her work can be found include: Riverbabble, River & South Review, The Seattle Review of Books, HIV Here & Now, Mad Swirl, Anti-Heroin Chic, Writing in a Woman's Voiceand in the Stonewall Legacy Anthology. Find her online at www.julenetrippweaver.com, or Twitter @trippweavepoet. 


1 comment:

  1. Oops, there goes another teenage heart. Such a sweet buildup, too.

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