Money Can't Buy You

I Want My Money Back

The wind is strong today,
it blows at skirts, attempting to whisk girls away
but they are stronger than they appear
in their dainty sundresses
and their shimmer pink lip gloss.

And when it finally rains—
the clouds opening to storm the bay
and cool the air
which had them sweating as they ran
from beach spot to train station
in their yellow platform heels—
they pull out their umbrellas
and walk along in a bustle
looking for a rainbow to crouch under.

Some of them, the favorites,
smile as they buy their coffee,
sipping it innocently, politely, and charmingly.
The others scowl,
at the heat, at the rain,
at the sun or at the clouds,
and are usually the ones people tend to renounce.
And all of them stir
the air of the city, laced with pollution
so harmful to their pink lungs.

And each of them is terrified,
because they are in love
or because they are adults
or because they want neither to grow
nor to care nor to wish someone there.
Each of them is falling
into cycles of mistakes
reaching for the next one
to carry her through the day.

Each of them is trying
day-by-day to survive.
And the dresses and the heels
get them through, one at a time,
as the sun beats down a spotlight
on their tiny little lives.

And the rain clouds give a curtain
for them to bow out of the show,
to get their money back, and go home.

August 23, 2008
I am not going to lie, this is a change of pace. A very weird piece for me to have written indeed. But, I wanted to try something slightly brighter. If you can call this bright and shiny. Which you can't, because it isn't...but for me it is.
Back the Love that You Had Then