Some context. I used to work in sexual health promotion for the NHS. Part of my job was teaching teenagers about LGBT issues and discouraging homophobia. This rhetorical question was put to me by a twelve year old, going on 64, in a rural Derbyshire school. He said he could understand “a gay and a girl wanting to go shopping and that” but that a straight man and a lesbian having any kind of platonic friendship was beyond him. I think he deserves a sonnet.

I would, but you are twelve, so you would not

Be drinking beer with anyone, I hope.

You say you think that lesbians are “hot”.

But friendship with them? That’s beyond your scope.

Can boys be friends with girls? You answer yes

But lesbians? You do not think you could

And you might find it hard, I will confess,

For you to find a lesbian who would

Be friends with you. You see them as a joke

Or as pornography. They are not real

To you. You’ll grow to be the sort of bloke

Who doesn’t care how other people feel.

I hope you find her, and she shifts your view

The lesbian who’d have a pint with you. 

A query about free will and footwear from Hannah.

You can.

Well, if that’s what you choose

You could pirouette onto the pitch

Feeling lighter than air as you gracefully leapt for the ball

But the mud that would stick To your shoes 

Would ooze

Between ribbons and buckles and twinkling glittery

Stars. And the soles with no studs – and no grip – would grow slippery 

So that soon you would skid, go slip-sliding away.

And then there would be every chance

That the game that you wanted to play

Would become an interpretive dance

Called “I ruined my shoes, and twisted my ankle and lost the match 17-nil. 

All in one day.”

And your football boots wouldn’t look right

With your tutu and tights, anyway.

They are your dancing shoes, after all. 

And you can, well, you could.

But there’s sometimes a difference to notice 

Between “can” and “should”

Recently Soph asked, after what was evidently a confusing viewing of the film Inside Out, “What’s puberty?” 

Well may you ask.

The quickest – and the slowest – answer is

 “Oh, you’ll find out.” And, honestly, you will.

And there is no way for me to describe

In any way that will make sense to you,

The way you will become a hormone factory.

Change size and shape and mood. Grow, and grow hair

Where no hair was before. How you will learn

To love and also hate, and with such force

That seven years has no way to imagine.

So I’ll just say: there lives, inside of you,

A grown up who is waiting to break free

And it will not be easy. You will cry

And laugh, and shout and cry and laugh again.

But when you meet that grown up, face to face,

You’ll find that it was worth it. You’ll find out.

Another solar concern. I can remember brooding over this problem at the age of about 9, and apparently kids are still worrying about it. I say worrying: I think there’s an element of morbidly scaring yourself for fun. 

Before it burns its last, the sun will grow

Becoming a red giant. It will swell

Like a great mushroom. And it will consume

Mercury, and Venus, and then Earth.

We won’t be there. Perhaps we will have gone

Out into space and colonized the stars

And we will watch through telescopes and see

The last days of our old ancestral home.

Or maybe, we will still be there on Earth

Watching the red sun swallow up the sky

Blaming the gods, each other and ourselves

Until, at last, we don’t blame anyone.

Or maybe there will be no one to see

The sun as it expands, then shrinks, then dies.

Perhaps the darkness that it leaves behind

Will blend, unseen, with all the other dark.

A neighbour’s child is apparently going through a phase of asking if various incredibly grisly deaths “would hurt”. This was my favourite iteration.

No, it wouldn’t hurt 

If you flew into the sun.

Because you’d be dead.

You’d have been burned up 

Before you got anywhere

Near the sun’s surface

Well dear, you did ask.

Now off into bed with you.

Night night, pleasant dreams!

Sometimes kids’ questions bring out the Roald Dahl or the Doctor Seuss in me, and sometimes they bring out the philosopher in me. 

This question did the latter.

Also I’ve just been rereading American Gods so that might be a factor.

As soon as we were able to imagine

Enough to tell stories, as well as hunt and gather,

We started making gods.

We said they were like animals, like fire

Like storms, like water. 

Gods were, to,us, the things we knew

As powerful.

We said they brought us into the world

The way our mothers did.

So we called them Mother 

We said they started us with love and joy

The way our fathers did

So we called them Father.

We thought of what would make a person powerful:

Wisdom.

The ability to fly.

The power to judge and punish.

And then we gave these powers to our gods

As tribute.

But to make us,

Gods, who after all can live outside of time,

First had to be made by us.

But in the imagining,

Maybe we were also guessing

And maybe, sometimes, we were right.

And maybe not.

This video is lovely and powerful. In particular there is one little boy who makes the art of saying affirmations very much his own. And at the end, he asks a question.

https://thescene.com/watch/presents/parents-write-affirmations-for-their-transgender-children

They don’t like balloons. 

The great, bobbing shapes bother them,

And the flouting of gravity.

The hiss as air escapes.

They could, if they wanted

Make paper chains and streamers of themselves.

But they don’t.

Music means nothing to them.

They don’t dance the conga

Or limbo:

Both feel redundant.

But, on their birthdays…

They bask in the warmth 

Of imaginary candles.

They quietly flick their tongues

To taste the air

Of a fresh year.

Yes, they celebrate.

Ben asked this question when he noticed that there was only one light in his parents’ bedroom. Voila, a lonely lightbulb’s lament.

I came here in a cardboard box

With five more just like me

We couldn’t wait to get to work

And help the people see

They put us on a table

And we looked up at the ceiling

And saw where three of us would live

It was a thrilling feeling.

The person who had brought us home

She climbed up on a chair

Took three of us, but left three back.

It felt a bit unfair.

“Don’t worry” said my neighbours

“For the lights here go in threes

We three will stay together 

And be happy, just like these!”

We saw the first three shining

As she carried us away

But when we saw the next room

It filled us with dismay 

The light fitting was double here

Not three, but only two

So one of us would stay behind 

And nothing could we do.

Yes, it was me who wasn’t picked 

My neighbours said goodbye

I watched them as she screwed them in

And tried hard not to cry.

At last she took me up the stairs

What waited at the end?

Perhaps another lightbulb

Who would need me as a friend!

But no, she brought me to this room

Which almost made me groan!

It only had one fitting

So I’d be here all alone!

And if that wasn’t bad enough 

It’s where they sleep at night

So when there’s people in here

They don’t often want my light.

I wish I were a kitchen light

Or living room… Instead

I am the lonely lightbulb

And I live above the bed.

The name of the kid who asked my friend Dan this is lost to posterity, but I’ve answered anyway.

•  

The gardens on faces

Aren’t planted with seeds

For some, they are flowers, 

For others, they’re weeds

So some people trim them,

And some people mow them,

And some people grow them 

And grow them and grow them.

Some gardens are messy,

All bushy and wild

And some are kept neat

And impeccably styled

Some people have gardens

They don’t really want

And some people wish

They could grow one, but can’t 

The gardens on faces

Aren’t planted with seeds

For some, they are flowers

For others, they’re weeds.

A question that sounded like an incredibly whimsical buzzfeed article turned out to be no more than a spelling query. 

Still, good question!

Unicorns begin, of course, with you.

If you can’t see them in prancing your mind

They don’t exist.

Will unicorns be coming to an end?

Or not? What’s next for them? It all depends

On whether you will stop imagining 

The unicorns, and everything they do,

Or else persist.