12-09-2017, 08:59 AM
That's one way of reading it. When I started writing it, it was supposed to be a girl fifteen years younger than the speaker, but before I finished it I realized that it sounded like the speaker was talking to a fifteen year old girl, and since that's a familiar theme with me I decided to go with that angle. . . . The way I worded it could go either way. I considered the word ''choleric'' instead of ''consumptive'' but figured that wouldn't make much sense in the context of the poem despite any direct literary allusion. And the eyes:
When these girls get high, they don't squint their eyes, their eyes squint them. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
When these girls get high, they don't squint their eyes, their eyes squint them. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.