And after this quick bash in the dark

You will rise and go,

Thinking of how empty you have grown,

And whether all the evening’s care in front of mirrors,

And the younger boys disowned,

Led simply to this.

 

Confined to what you are expected to be,

By what you are,

Out in this frozen garden,

You shiver and vomit –

Frightened, drunk among the trees,

You wonder at those acts that called for tenderness

Were far from tender.

 

Now you have left your titterings about love

And your childishness behind you;

Yet still far from being old,

You spew up among flowers,

And in the warm stale rooms,

The party continues.

 

It seems you saw some use in moving away

From that group of drunken lives,

Yet already ten minutes pregnant,

In twenty thousand you might remember

this party,

this dull Saturday evening

when planets rolled out of your eyes

and splashed down in suburban grasses.

 

Brian Patten (1946- ), Portrait of a Young Girl Raped at a Suburban Party, 1970.