There is a girl who sits behind me in class,
looking exactly like me
talking exactly like me
dreaming exactly like me
still succeeding, unlike me
(a 4.0 gpa and perfect disciplinary record precedes her introductions).
She doodles stories on scraps of paper between tests too simple for her
and talks about dreams of fantasy to her eager listeners,
so tantalizing in this world of reality.
She’s enthralling. She’s perfect
and my mind sickens like the stomach sickens to sugar
whenever I witness her.
She’s the student that teachers would love to praise,
the daughter that mothers would wish they could have
the friend that would be so hard to hate
and yet I cannot help but to hate her
Even as I continued to fantasize about her
and how to steal her perfect life for my own.
She sits behind me in class, and she is of no use to me
alive. Because of course not, Little Miss Perfect has no reason
to share help with Little Miss Destitute,
who sits in front of her with poorer grades and poorer attitude
with pushed averages of 80s to compare to her perfect hundreds,
though we shared the same wondering creativity (but only her’s was noticed)
The last I saw her was her shadow, stretching from behind
when she was dreaming again about the colors of the sky
from the off-limits school roof (she could get away with murder if she tried).
Christ almighty, I could almost hear her honest tone, singing Nirvana
To the blues and peaches and lavenders and golds yawning above her,
on the evening when she dreamed her last
And blew a kiss to the asphalt, crushing
her ribs and my dreams, all at once
and leaving me alone with myself again,
with no one sitting behind me.
The author of this poem has requested to be published anonymously.
The author would like to put in the record that they have one (1) brain cell that walks the line between memes and extreme nihilism.