Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

The Sun – Truth –

High school for me was a religious boarding school whose faculty asserted their monopoly on truth. I considered myself an honorable person and despised lies. So when asked straightforward questions, I told the truth and accepted my punishment. However, I gradually discovered that they reserved the right to lie to us and in fact, considered that “parental” and pedagogical. Was there any point telling “the truth” to such people? Apparently, truth was a scarce resource that I, at age 14, possessed. The hypocrisy was huge. My father loved the Society of Friends because creed was optional, attendance at meeting was voluntary and silent. No one spoke unless moved by the Holy Spirit. But at our school, religious attendance (we even had Vespers!) was mandatory and our captive audience was lectured from the Facing Bench (where the Important People sit.)

In such a world, is truth possible? Is it even findable? Above all, is it communicable? I was naturally artistic, a bent which was discouraged because it was “self-indulgent”. And poetry (it’s poetry if the poet says it is) is the most self-indulgent of all. So that’s what I chose.

PREPPY

Corseted with verbs
The French teacher sweeps
The cherry blossoms from the tennis court
As she would like to sweep
The cherries, squelching them soundly
Beneath soccer-spiked shoes

While the headmistress
Cello-breasted
Polishes graffiti carved upon her coffin
In Chaucerian High English
And the girls –
Nun-white, nun-blue

Soar above hockey fields like
Foul-mouthed angels, anticipated ecstasy locked
In narrow hope chests ripened on
Amphetamines
Free Love
Bad dreams.