The Girls

“Their tongues are filled with lies.
Snake venom drips from their lips.*”

 

The Girls

It’s stepping into the viper pit,
venom teething out of fangs,
a poisonous liquor drips from their
cool lips, licking them,
something used to be sticky and sweet,
now they’re all and a mess.
Sharp tongues flicking as they click against the inside of their jaw,
all I know these girls used to go to my school,
used to dress like they owned the world,
all they knew was looking in their compact mirrors
admiring the way their hair flipped that morning,
and how cherry red their nails were,
that shiny car out in the parking lot
was a compensation for the little patience they had
with everyone else.
They liked to zoom zoom, fast on the highway,
spend millions of seconds looking at their threaded eyebrows,
if they were thoroughbred horses training for the next race,
they were well pampered, fed, and all their hungers for Gucci or Prada quenched.
They were slick with their speech and passionate about anything pink or glossy.
They didn’t talk to boys, boys talked to them,
and hovered above every breathy, angelic burp or fart.
Everything about them smelled of expensive perfume,
the kind you can’t find in stores, too high-end,
and their attention to detail mother’s never seemed to lay eyes on their pretty faces
to see if they were actually enjoying all these free gifts that hard work and sweat had never seen.
Was I one of them?
Well I wanted to be, to be noticed by the nobodies around me,
to be gifted with the ability to sneeze gold from my tiny man-u-factured nose,
to know my trash was the favorable trash,
and my stench everyone wanted to smell,
because it was the closest thing to winter roses.
But I have to think we all have a sweet tooth when it comes to the next person’s greener grass.
We’re seeing things the way we want them,
but you never see the girls crying in the bathroom stall,
leaking pools of black mascara under her polished finger nail bed,
we never see what we should see,
because seeing the flossy versions of ourselves is better,
preferred over the full glass of water she uses to gulp down
the thick pill she tumbles in her sweaty closed palms.
Looking back I finally see it all.

*Psalm 5:9

Author's Note

what do you think?

Reviews

[Beccy]

You paint an easily recognisable picture with great flair and the way you describe 'the girls' is both witty and acerbic. rather than just plain spiteful.

In particular, I loved that line, 'and their attention to detail mothers, never seem to lay eyes on their pretty faces,' I know the type well, and am fortunate in my mother who is deliciously disdainful of accessorising.

Beccy.