Landfall 205, Autumn 2003
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High School taught me that blonde is the colour of bitch.
Thanks for that year of torment in 1989
Libby and Elizabeth
I’ll never forget your
Two sets of owl-like eyes
Your pastel tongued-cruelty
Your thin dissolving smiles
And as for you Fleur Ford
Your leopard print bikini
Was a stern reprimand to all my ass could never be
At thirteen I wouldn’t have dared believe I’d eventually fuck your boyfriend
And I guess some small part of me still wonders
If it was as mechanical and meaningless for you as it was for me.
Amber, my nemesis
Your cold blue stare will always remind me of the Alien Queen in the mini-series V
Especially the scene where she devours the live hamster
She too had a powerful personality.
Tell me
Was it the year of the slut?
When Shona Jackson’s boyfriend bought her that bottle of Poison perfume
By Christian Dior
Expensive and adult
The colour of jealousy
It symbolised all the sex we had never had
And spread through the fourth form like a disease
Elizabeth and Jessica from Sweet Valley High
Popping out of book covers like two mocking cuckoos
Telling lemon yellow lies
“Who’s afraid of Virginia Andrews?” they cackle and coo.
Their names are my High School anthem
Their frozen faces my emblem of perfection
Their tanned hides
My blue lagoon.
What ever happened to Western Heights?