interacting with DARKNESS

Although it is night, I sit in the bathroom, waiting.
Sweat prickles behind my knees, the baby-breasts are alert.
Venetian blinds slice up the moon; the tiles quiver in pale strips.

Then they come, the three seal men with eyes as round
As dinner plates and eyelashes like sharpened tines.
They bring the scent of licorice. One sits in the washbowl,

One on the bathtub edge; one leans against the door.
"Can you feel it yet?" they whisper.
I don't know what to say, again. They chuckle,

Patting their sleek bodies with their hands.
"Well, maybe next time." And they rise,
Glittering like pools of ink under moonlight,

And vanish. I clutch at the ragged holes
They leave behind, here at the edge of darkness.
Night rests like a ball of fur on my tongue.

What is the significance of the girl interacting with the darkness in Adolescence II? In order to tell you the significance of the girl's interaction with the "darkness," I would have to fully understand what this poem is about. I don't. but I can try mybest to interpret what the "darkness" is, then we can go from there.

The "darkness" is obviously something bad, something that leaves her speechless. the "darkness" is something that keeps beating at her, something that torments her... I think that the "darkness" is the pressures that occur during adolescence.. love, lies, promiscuity, sex, drugs... and possibly cocoapuffs. ;) it is peer-pressure.

Now that we have established what the "darkness" is, we can begin to explain the significance of the girls interaction with it.

In the beginning, the girl resists the "darkness," or what we are calling peer-pressure. it keeps pressing on her, she begins to bend, then she breaks. peer-pressure has had it's way with her. like it does with every adolescent. then in the end, once peer-pressure, the "darkness" has it's way with her, the pressures just toss her aside. and she's left, all alone. broken. the last line is "night rests like a ball of fur on my tongue." have you ever had hair in your mouth? let alone an entire ball of fur. it's the worst feeling isn't it? you can't get ride of it. that's how "the darkness" leaves her. it leaves her, broken. alone. with a taste in her mouth that she can't get out.

This poem shows the torment that all adolescents go through. it shows how we can't avoid it, and as fast as the "seal men" or peer-pressures come, they are gone, like "glittering pools of ink".