Look at us,
all grown up and looking pretty,
with our hair hanging down
in loose, shiny waves,
and our makeup tricking people
into our eyes.

We are the something-else girls,
willing to give up on crackling reality
in exchange for something
totally gorgeous and overpriced.

We walk by you
with our hips swaying
and our cell-phones ringing
and you can’t help but get
caught staring at the little
movements we make, as we turn
your brain to mush. And you
should feel unbelievably
lucky that we superstars let you
stay around to do our
homework and carry our books.

But anyway, good-luck
with that heartbreak, babe,
we’re off to see the world.
You know, the great, big, round one
that floats it’s way round the sun?
We’re off to the four different
corners of it, to get perfect
tans and brand new noses
and to teach ourselves to love
history.

Because right now we couldn’t
care less about civil war monuments and
that guy who did the thing for his
country and then got all
famous and recognized.
To us the world is just a place
where people decided to
build shopping malls and
hair salons and hand out free samples
of our favorite perfumes.

So we txt each other a list
of all the great places to shop,
and listen to our pop music
at full volume.
And we point out the Eiffel Tower,
Liberty Bell,
Mona Lisa and the Aqueducts,
our eyes and mouths
forming words of incredulous awe.

And for a moment
people look at us as if
it might be unfair to call us
stupid, back-stabbing bitches
with morals as shallow
as a cookie sheet.
But then we make the next
spelling mistake, dab on more
lip gloss and swish out our purses,
wanting to buy away the beauty
of these rainbow-hugged
collaborations with a couple
hundred American dollars.

And you roll your eyes,
and mouth the words, here they
go again,
and the world sinks back
into its pattern of normal idiocy
with a click.

So much for wishing
on pennies thrown into wells,
the wells of our appreciation
have been drained by
a single handkerchief
(and our minds will struggle for a
moment, thinking that might have
been a historical reference of some kind,
before sinking back into a
head-shaking ‘never mind’ state,
where we buy the newest
Avril Lavigne CD and
stack our purchases on the counter
with a MasterCard on top).