shore leave
A boy and shore leave
The 15 years old boy was standing on the poop deck of an old tank ship
late at night, looking up at the millions of stars over
The Red Sea.
His job was to clean pots and pans in the galley ruled over by a cook
who hated the world and everybody in it.
The boy had tried to sit in the mess hall where older seamen
sat, drinking coffee and playing cards, but they had made fun of him
saying he looked like a girl the way he folded his arms.
His left nibble was swollen when he pressed on the nipple, white
stuff came out, he wondered if he was turning into a girl.
In his cabin, he had found pornographic pictures by looking at them
he decided he was very much a boy.
In a rough society like this, there was no one to talk to about his
feelings, a forbidden word, like constructing a house of cards and
pulling the bottom card away.
A burst dam of feelings by those who had kept their loneliness
hidden, not being able to tell anyone about a rotten childhood, a miserable life punctuated by shore leave, with drink and whores
of Rotterdam.
The boy giggled at the thought of seeing bearded men wailing
about their misery; nevertheless, the next time the ship docked in
Rotterdam, he would go ashore to see what it was all about.
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