(growing Pains) Skipping Rhyme - Skipping Time Poem by Janice Windle

Talking over our lives, as you do with a new love, I told Dónall about my troubled pre-pubescence, when I was convinced that I was abnormal and that I would never grow breasts like Marilyn Monroe's or even like Christine B's who was in my class at primary school and was an 'early developer'. This poem grew out of our conversation........

One - two - three!
Christine B
her and me,
waiting for the school bus
at half - past - three.
The boys agree
she's a beauty,
not like me.

She's
ten years old,
busty, bold,
wears a belt
like nurses do,
little waist,
makes me blue
- no -
green with envy!
Snakes alive!
Three - four – five!

Nineteen hundred
and fifty-five
I've got a tummy
like a bee-hive.
it's unjust,
I've got no bust
will I never
make boys lust?
Six - seven - eight!
just you wait!
Christine what will
be your fate?

Nineteen hundred
and sixty-two,
I grew up,
just like you.
Husbands, kids,
how time flew,
now if we should
meet again,
no more envy
no more pain
in two thousand
o o eight
no more bitching
no more hate -
no more fighting
over men –
we'd be sisters -
eight - nine - ten!