o when you were young
did you enjoy
taking the trolley every day to the private school?
o where the air hangs heavy
with the vague smell of ingratitude
o when you came back
how did you know that i had replaced you
as the kid called on by others to be a humiliated fool?
daring me to swim the levy
with a face full of vodka, too
everyone says you are the king of the swish and it's cool, yeah, it's cool
when you came back there was a sign on your locker:
you're the "biggest mary in the entire school."
down the bright orange hall
by the language lab
sneaking a nap in the back of some old, deserted church pew
hiding from your peers and teachers
just waiting for your ticket to come through
you want to run off to paris and live like rimbaud
in a commune
anything, really, to take you away
from the table-waiting fate that awaits you, too
everyone says you are the king of the swish and it's cool, yeah, it's cool
when you came back there was a sign on your locker:
you're the "biggest mary in the entire school."