On a random Tuesday during lunch, they shouted out steak and fries.

High school boys say some strange things I thought.

What’s steak and fries?

A simple question I did ask.

Turns out I misheard, and what they really said to me was hey there goes thunder thighs.

And as their loud obnoxious laughter crossed that narrow street – I died a little in the noise.

The thunder thighs they shouted about had trouble holding me up,

and couldn’t stop me from feeling destroyed.

That day those boys bought into this torture and decided it would remain.

They consciously choose to never refrain.

You see, they were called the popular ones.

But they had no real reason,

for mean and nasty is never in season.

But when your 15 the world is so strange.

Gross is celebrated while kind slowly is forced to change.

I suffered alone as they mercifully screamed steak and fries

whenever I was in their eyes.

It boiled down to me against them.

As the adults in my life never arrived.

I took it and took it – they even followed me home.

Block after block,

Week after week,

Year after year.

They kept this game strong.

But I fought back by standing tall on the thunder thighs that started it all.

A few years went by, and I finally packed up and left.

Sad and depressed, but I covered it well.

For me and these thighs discovered quite a thing.

Simply leaving helps your soul heal, open up, and begin to feel safe enough to be seen.

To create your own story – where you learn from your past – where you dig deep down inside

and discover none of the teenage shit ever lasts.  

Those words from 1981 to 1983 Weehawken may still sting just a bit when I allow myself to remember,

but my thighs and I,

we stand proud in my life that is now happy, healthy, larger, greater, and better than anything or anyone from my past.

So here’s to steak and fries, and my thunder thighs.

May we always continue to write it all down and rise!