misspent youth

Amy passed out in Miss Shop.
Her eyes rolled back in her head. Looked at the inside of her skull.
Sometimes, she said afterwards, she thinks she does too many drugs.
But only sometimes, she said.
I should have asked the plastic mannequin that broke her fall.
On those evenings that are cool like spit I like to sit and think
('cos in class you're more popular if you fall asleep).
Oh, and Belinda keeps lipstick in her pencil case you know.
A blush brush in her bag. Me & Cookie steal P-plates from cars.
Probably to make us feel like we're going somewhere.
Walking home, other people's eyeballs sluice in their sockets,
I'm buying marijuana from moustached men in tight trench coats,
or I'm twisting street signs into obscene shapes.
Depends on who's watching I guess.
It's just all of us at seventeen getting an education
in acting smart, and every exam teaching us to be what we're not.
Because nobody nowhere understands,
except everyone. And each other. But even then not even.
In my mind it's always Amy passing out in Miss Shop.
A nice nineteen year old, normal name;
Her eyes reversed. Looked inside her mind.
And then she died. I coudn't save her. She died right there in Miss Shop.
And she didn't know she died. Her calves were white
where they flopped across the tracksuit tops in Miss Shop,
where she died. I couldn't save her. Amy died.
Amy died. I couldn't save her. And I didn't even try.