A Young Girl’s Heart is Made of a Love So Silly

For many years, my imagination overflowed with sappy scenes full of romantic "high-falluting mumbo jumbo" that I wrote in my stories (Anne of Green Gables). I pictured many kisses, holding hands, and my wedding. It didn't help I read so many sweet romance novels by classic authors like L.M. Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen, or contemporary authors Jannette Oke and Jack Weyland.

I crushed hard on several of the male characters and the actors who played them in the 80s and 90s film versions: Gilbert Blythe (Anne of Green Gables), Mr. Darcy (Pride and Prejudice), Linus Larrabee (Sabrina), Dr. MacNeill (Christy), and Laurie (Little Women). Of course, those same qualities I adored I looked for in actual boys.

For example, I had a different crush on a different boy each year during K-12 school. In middle school, my friends and I had code names for the boys in our friend group, which allowed us to converse openly about them. At least we thought. In my Senior yearbook, one boy signed with his code name. I don't know whether to blush or laugh over that. Mostly laugh.

Then my senior year crush heard me say I liked him during a school trip. I thought I had whispered so only my friends could hear. When I discovered he knew several years later, I balked at his description that I'd said it for anyone to hear. Unfortunately, my voice raises in volume when I am excited.

So with such a vivid imagination, I wrote multiple poems about romance in middle school. Enjoy these poems in their original glory.

• Seeking My Beast
• Beauty and the Beast
• Christy
• When the Rose Blooms (reminiscent of "The Rose" sung by Bette Midler)
• Flying
• What Is This New Feeling?
• Heartbeat
• Why Do I Fall in Love?

Seeking My Beast

I am home for a week:

My time here is past.

Now I feel I must seek

The beast very fast.

I wander through

Tall, dark pines;

The night is new

And grows old with time.

I try hard to find

The road leading to my beast.

The darkness makes me blind.

I can’t tell west from east.

I fall by the road;

I look up to a black sky.

Heavier becomes my load

Of despair I must defy.

With all my strength,

I sand again to face

The problem at length;

I beat it to flee this place.

I come to the gate

And rush to the hall.

No longer can my beast wait;

My love comes overall!

I find him dying.

“I love you my beast!”

I feel like we’re flying;

I cast the spell from my beast.

My beast is back with me;

Not as a beast—but a man.

Our love is full of purity

That evil cannot withstand.

Based on Beauty by Robin McKinley

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the beast—

Beauty is a plain girl;

The beast may feast,

But not on this girl.

Beauty cannot see

the beauty within

Her soul, so sacredly.

The beast sees her beauty within.

The beast comes to love

This undiscovered beauty;

Beauty can sense thereof

The beast with many a quality.

Beauty can sense

When the beast is near;

She can feel his presence;

The beast can sense her fear.

Beauty overcomes her fear

Because the beast believes in her.

Beauty holds the beast dear

For his faith in her.

Christy

Christy—a woman of nineteen—

Came to Cutter Gap to teach.

She found many times mean,

And God’s love out of reach.

Christ learned a great deal

From the people in Cutter Gap.

She had great zeal

That sometimes caught her in a trap.

In the end, she is ill

And finds God’s love

Through a struggle uphill.

She has almost risen above.

Someone is calling her name

With all his might,

Asking God with all his inner flame

To bring her back alright.

Dr. MacNeill finds God

Through his love for Christy.

God is a loving God,

MacNeill comes to know through agony.

Christy comes back well

To help this lonely man

More than she can tell

Or could ever plan.

Based on Christy by Catherine Marshall

When the Rose Blooms

When the rose blooms,

A window opens in my heart;

You can see all the rooms

With roses in my heart.

Springtime comes again—

The time for love

To never end.

What hope is made of.

You can feel the love

From a distance

Because a rose was given to you by a dove.

What romance!

When the light has gone

From the bright sun,

Will we see another dawn?

Our love has just begun.

Now the rose is blooming.

Feeling it deep inside,

Both of us assuming,

It is not to be denied.

Written or typed 1/23/95

reminiscent of "The Rose" sung by Bette Midler

Flying

Didn’t you know that we’re in love?

Please don’t go away my darling now.

We are flying high above.

We see the landscape before us now

Laid out before our hungry eyes.

We have fallen in love, but how?

Between us are no lies.

Soaring through the many skies,

The wind blows in my face.

I see everything with my eyes.

We look at each other and embrace.

Staring into your eyes,

I feel love coming over me.

Oh, how time flies

Soaring through the skies happily.

What Is This New Feeling?

What is this new feeling?

I’ve never felt it before.

I’m falling and kneeling

Just begging for more.

In love, forever,

Not just now, but always—

Always together

For many days.

I’m going crazy over you.

Loving and caring to ask

“How do you do?”

It’s just a simple task.

Something strange I feel;

It feels like something new.

Falling to kneel,

Knowing I need you.

Heartbeat

Running as fast as we can,

Aiming for each other,

Now embracing one another,

Loving each other.

Can you hear the heartbeat

That pounds between us?

Can you hear

The sounding chorus?

Laughing and talking

To one another.

We’re both in love

With each other.

We walk under the moonlight.

Our hearts are racing

To the very end.

Now they’re pacing.

Why Do I Fall in Love?

Why do I fall in love

So very easily?

A young girl’s heart is made of

A love so silly.

I am growing in many a way,

But I still fall in love pathetically

With someone strange. Inside I say,

“What is wrong with me?”

My heart is quite unsure

Of all the feeling, so new.

I don’t know what I’m aiming for,

Or where credit is due.

I hope this silliness

Vanishes in the depths of time

To feelings more serious

Maybe in their prime.

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