Hanging Fire

“Hanging Fire” explores moments that are experienced by most American teenagers, stressing aspects of the speaker’s naivety and innocence. These experiences include infatuation and heartbreak, suggesting that the speaker is generally still inexperienced and confronting rapid changes in her mental and physical development. The speaker says, “the boy I cannot live without / still sucks his thumb / in secret” (Lines 4-6). She has intense feelings of needing to be with her crush, claiming she “cannot live without” him (Line 4); however, she realizes he has some childlike qualities, including “suck[ing] his thumb” (Line 5). The speaker is unable to indulge in such childish habits, but her feelings for the boy remain strong. The contrast between her crush’s immaturity and seeming obliviousness to her and her own sense of intense desire for him suggests that she is maturing more rapidly than this male peer.

The gap between The more mature and self-aware young speaker and her less-accomplished male peers is referenced later in the poem as well, when the speaker asserts that she should have been chosen for the math team, as “[her] marks were better than his” (Line 26, emphasis added). The experience of having better grades and yet being denied appropriate academic recognition (e.