Sparta

Four-car garages filled with Infinities
stretch across brick driveways
patterned after something
the builder must have seen
on MTV’s Cribs.

I found swastikas on my locker
on April 20^th of my freshmen year.
During the walk through the hallway
between 5^th and 6^th period
I found myself bruised and bleeding
for having looked at the head cheerleader’s boyfriend.

Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt have a summer home on the lake,
along with Tony Soprano, Bob Hope, and Rob Lowe.

On the lake, you have to care about keeping the dandelions
from spreading in the summer
and the children from building snow men in the winter.

My sophomore year, they pulled off my shirt
in gym class and forced me to throw up my lunch
in the toilet behind the showers
to prove to me that I had eaten too much and I was fat.

My junior year, my car, a 1985 Chevy Nova I paid for myself
with 3 after-school jobs,
had liquid detergent smeared on the hood,
but I made nearly $400 writing other people’s essays
and term papers.

My senior year, I didn’t go to prom
because I didn’t want to celebrate my oncoming freedom
with the girls who pulled me up in front of the class
when the teacher wasn’t in the room
to read the tags of my shirts and pants aloud
because the brand and size just had to be public knowledge
or the boys who called me Kike or Jap
and threatened to rape me because I wouldn’t go
down on the quarter-back
after the homecoming game
like the other smart girls.