Typical Girl

Whatever happened to the

Girl with the name of a mermaid and the

Kids from the crazy club in Worcester

The brown boy with ancient eyes who gave me my best line

I stole it from cast-off snakeskins slumming one July

Running away from a monster with

Blue eyes blue jean soul beat

Down and faded we were all

Running from something

Running or standing reading Stephen King

And making weapons in the

Basement Red-haired momma raised us on Abbie Hoffman Revolution

You were the casualty in the undeclared war on

Drugs

You were the one who dared to beat the monster

Back you were the one drunk and

Frightening in the dark you were the one I ran to and away

From to hide me too

scared to be poor or queer to soft and strange for revolution in anything more than

Moldy magazines and coffee shops

I threw away the mermaid girls art

Barbie with big hair and black-and-blues

"Typical Girl"

She called it

I wore it pinned to a thrift store vest until I moved to rich town where

Nobody flaunted survival only crazy that was fashionable

When my boyfriend too-scared-to-be-my- girlfriend-but-was-anyway sniffed at the pretense of punk rock

My boy girlfriend who never drank but I left behind

Like a moldering copy of feminist poetry

And the mad children who made me whole