A Golden Boy Meets Golden Girl

The golden walls and golden towers
Upon which drift the golden showers
Wherein there grow the golden flowers
Are on an isle that well embowers
The lovely Golden Girl

Who is she?

Sometimes I see her floating on puddles of water in her old black castle on the green corn fields. A muddled labyrinth of black curls hangs like a thick, black curtain of a thousand cavities over her iron face, not often seen, or felt.

Sometimes I feel her iron stare as she lifts the black curtain, divulging her unblemished, lifeless, pupilless eyes: one white, one black.

Sometimes I hear her clandestine footsteps behind me, or beside me, perhaps beneath, often above.

Every day I catch glimpses of her inside this make-up mirror, on the stony lacerations of this stony room.  

And there she weaves by day and night
A golden web divine and bright
That gives her strength and sheds her light
Beside her magic mirror white
Beneath the Golden Pearl

Onto the web I am weaving my zillion friends who gather beside my locker before school, during recess, after our day is done. They are the remaining of what I used to have—a plethora of too many.

This I know still: half of them are just fair weather friends. The other half do not even like me. They are only around me to fit themselves into my absurd popularity.

Of the zillion, a zillion of them have given me their smile, laughter, praise. But only two—out of a zillion—have ever cried with me.

Her mirror shows the dying world
Where once she lived with darkness twirled
She sees her beaus still blondly curled
To whom her wrath and joy she hurled
The lovely Golden Girl

When last I heard from my first sweetheart—he is almost graduating from university now—he said: “You are too young.”

When last I heard from my second sweetheart—he barely ever washed himself—he said: “Umm, you’re too old.”

When last I heard from my third sweetheart—it was only two weeks since he declared his eternal love—he said: “I don’t love you no more.”

When last I heard from my fourth sweetheart—it was on our very first date—he said: “I hope you won’t mind my other girl.”

When last I heard from my sixth sweetheart—I truly fell for him—he said: “I know you love me. But I’ll never love you…”

But always there’s a golden boy
Who firmly holds her love and joy
Who never weighs her by the troy
Unlike her formers sleek and coy
Beneath the Golden Pearl

When I recovered enough to pursue my seventh sweetheart—he was caring, handsome, loving—he said: “I can’t go out with you. I have a…boyfriend…”

The only sweetheart that did not turn completely sour was the school soccer star. The night he first asked me to a movie he said: “By the way, my mother will come with us tonight.”

From now on, I will listen to my wise friend. On each other we had a crush once a summer fling but never did we go out. So now we still talk endless hours on the phone and write to each other.

Perhaps I am destined to die a virgin.

The day she sees him coming near
Her weaving seems so dull and drear
She leaves her web to see her dear
Her golden tears her eyes do blear
The lovely Golden Girl

Every day I am steeped in anxiety…

This only my best friends know; but even they, like the others, cannot and will never understand why I carry with me Your Bible.

They do not know that my golden curls are really dyed from black. They cannot see my thousand tears beneath the golden smile; nor the famine, the violence, the deceits that abound in my golden castle.

Please help me! All I ask for is someone who will understand; someone who will see and love beneath the golden façade; someone who will speak with all the sincerity of a mind that kindles, comforts, believes…

Lament and sorrow fill his eyes
His princely powers he dares remise
And live with her to ostracize
The worldly dread they both despise
Beneath the Golden Pearl

“One day,” I still believe, “I will meet the Golden Boy…”

And we will be in this room—the only room in this golden castle, not golden, not magical. The heavy drapery, dusty, is hung up awkwardly alongside the tinted window, falling, yet holding, yielding the sullen light of the world. Mist rises from the stony lacerations of the stony ground.

Here I prefer to think, looking through the window, to see men and women passing by, and to see the corn grow, sitting on my wooden bed weaving, thinking about tomorrow.

Here only is where I cannot, but have already let go. Here only I cry. Dream. Exist. Stumble.

Her magic mirror fills with chants
He knows he sees he understands
The void there in their golden hands
Whereon with happy tears she stands
The lovely Golden Girl 

He knows; he sees; he understands…

Awaking from my golden dreams
I know I’m fated by Supremes
Though too his castle gladly gleams
A golden boy but ever reams
A Golden Girl like me