Skank

You claim she's making you restless
with her strings of costume jewelry and celebrity perfume
that reeks of insecurity and family issues.
But despite all your complaining,
the way I see things; your heart, friend,
is just as isolated as this girl's
and you two aren't that different.

She thinks it's funny to call her peers names
that she dug up out of her dad's expensive yard,
covered in undeserving soil and pubescent bacteria.
"Dance with me," she says.
"So everyone will think you're normal."
And you make excuses as
disco balls throw cliche glamour against
the rundown walls of a gym near the Pacific coast,
letting the sugary fruit juice that you downed before;
with a secret shot of liquor,
infect your blood, to get you through the hours till midnight.

Outside this hellhole of a public school,
I count how many times my words have stuttered and my voice has died
at the sight of your desert penny eyes.
But I won't go through that again, honey,
because even sand castles get tired of being knocked down.

Although you swear it's no big deal
if we kiss in the men's restroom,
no problem at all faking sincerity,
still, I refuse to be your dirty little secret, my damaged sun-star.
I won't help you deceive that girl
with the trailer park hair and empty sad violet-eyes because
no matter how awful a human being she is,
I won't stoop so low, being your afternoon lost-whore.

Gibberish on the phone; it's 3 AM and I'm in bed,
wishing you'd get the hell away from my front lawn.
There's a white trash moon sparkling on the roof and it fits your tears perfectly
because you were the one who threw our friendship
over these electric fences; like a trash-bag
filled with hand-me-down clothes, cigarettes and beer cans,
dropped my hand when I reached across the plane crash unknown
and tried to help you cope with these same-sex lightning sparks.
Now I'm nothing to you but an opportunity to have some fun
in the sunken grape green hills of an invisible divide, honey.

But I'm somebody's child, still, though, I promise you;
I'm not a sleazy two-hour drive-thru or a crumpled-up paper-cut apology,
police lights on Hollywood Boulevard,
stolen credit cards and an accident in the parking lot,
just waiting to ruin our already sad little lives.