Young Love

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Crashing and hissing, the cold surf spray

Creates misty rainbows in the morning air.

Soft, supple hands glide slowly everywhere

As someone gently tugs at your belly ring

With their teeth and playfully flicks at its

Smooth, shiny surface with their tongue.

But all we gave each other then were

The sterile promises of young love

And gleaming surgical steel belly rings

That hurt and itched as our piercings healed

Needing to disinfect the red wound daily

With a hydrogen peroxide solution

To bubble and froth the germs away.

As with any such foreign body

Hanging from your flesh

It seemed forced and unnatural.

Then the day comes when you stop

Realizing the ring is even there.

You forget about it completely

So disaffected from the now familiar feeling

You wait and hope for some sharp stimulus or

Fool-friendly proof that your existence somehow

Means more than just one small wave in the eternal

Flow of white waves washing over strewn seashells.
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Daniel James Hennell, 2007