The In Crowd

At twelve I longed to be best friends with
the least of them, the stunning useless
kind that carried sin inside the whisper
of a pillow fight, in homes where
parents chirped their very worst,
"You're grounded" was a joke to me
and sent me into fits of wild hysteria.
I loved them for their aptitude
and drawers and drawers of cashmeres

worn buttoned down the back. The collars
they called "peter pan" matched the socks
rolled thin as dimes stuffed inside a pair
of white buck shoes with dusting bags
they plumed in class, especially during math.
Math, they somehow passed in notes
behind the cheers devised for guys
that waited on the playing field.
These girls held mass in toiletry at 6 am

inside the kind of rest room sanctity
known only by the chosen, where
small shrubs of twisted hair were sprung
from curls secured in bobby-pins the night
before, while I blew smoke into the toilet.
Aching to belong, I traded secrets
for those moments spent in guidance
shared vicariously between the best
of them and the worst in me.