The Young Coquette

What do I call that young coquette? My shadow self; my silhouette. Those clothes, that hair, a cigarette. The joie de vivre; the vain regret. What sort of pithy epithet will she recall, lest I forget? Perhaps, instead a sobriquet for who I was back in the day. But what would she wish to portray? Somewhat naive, a bit risqué? A wounded child or power play? “All that and more!” is what she’d say. That girl who played a victim game (though she would make the counter-claim). A femme fatale; a wild flame. A spirit not a soul could tame. Both full of pride and full of shame, all contradiction just the same. It all feels now as but a dream, that martyr of her own regime. A fog of war; a distant scream. An echo of one’s disesteem. A soldier who would self-redeem and break her shackles at the seam. Now when she comes to mind I smile, recalling each and every mile we marched and fought in rank and file. We failed, we wailed, we shed the guile to wake and heal and reconcile a misspent youth and life worthwhile. *****************************