walk happy through shopping mall
new vinyl-and-nylon marching band letter jacket
maybe she’ll notice, offer a compliment
oh no, she’s not at department store job
it’s too early to go home
no movies starting soon
walk to Disc Records
flip past albums and 8-track tapes
three male classmates come up and say
they’re tired of me because
my grades are too good
and their parents hold me up
as some kind of role model
one of them slaps me
in the back of the head
(no one else in the store notices)
before telling me I need to fail
at least one test
to take the heat off of them
then he calls me “damn queer”
before they strut away
it’s only junior year
PSATs are coming soon
if scores are good,
maybe I can think of going to college
that’s at least a hundred miles away
from this hell
that rarely stops being fresh
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