I will be embarking now on a sequence of poems, in chronological and thematic order, that will stretch back right towards some of my earliest poetry. The collective theme is 'Love's Tempest', within which there will be various sub-themes. We start with the sub-theme 'Beginnings'.

Although this particular poem was probably written when I was 19 or 20 years old, it talks about earlier chidhood. It is definitely the start of the story.

No-one ever understands.
All my life it seems I've tried
To fit in with a group of friends
That couldn't accept me for what I was
Inside.

Being a Jew was always enough
To justify the sort of hate
That made, as example, one girl say
"They should have gassed you with all the rest."

And then they called my friend a good samaritan
Because, they said, I looked like I was best
In a gutter.
And I must have heard every single joke that ever was
Relating Jews to misers.

And then the truth was that I didn't know
What being Jewish could be.
Or should I say, could never be accepted
By my own community.

And we were waiting by a window,
My sister and I, for a car that never came.
A father that didn't care enough
To let us know he wouldn't be there, again.

And no-one seems to understand
How difficult it is for me to like myself.
Going as I am, against what everyone else
Has seemed to think about my worth.

All of this I have risen above.
And now I know I can be loved.
But deep inside, a little child
Is waiting for a car to come...
That she can't remember the colour of.