They’ll wear dresses and tuxes
and dance and laugh
they’ll pose and kiss
and stay up ‘til dawn

Prom Night for them
a Sopranos marathon for me
no corsage and necklace
only sweatpants and bare feet

There are worse things
than not getting asked to prom
it’s just that tonight
I can’t really think of any

It’s my acne and glasses,
isn’t it, guys?
oh, and you don’t like flat chests
especially, virgins with flat chests

36D always beats 4.0
blond trumps mousy brown
the meek may inherit the earth
but they’ll never land the quarterback

High school is the time of your life?
for some, maybe
four years of building my shaky self-esteem
won’t be undone tonight, though

I won’t be eating a pint of ice cream
and crying under the covers
while Mom wipes at my tears
and gives me a pep talk

Those guys may have hurt my feelings
justified my cynicism
and made me wish Carrie trashed their prom
but they can’t turn me into a cliché

 

Jeff Ryan is a poet living in New York City. His work has appeared in The Lake, One Art, WestWard Quarterly, Down in the Dirt, Beach Chair Press, Rat’s Ass Review, Nuthouse, and the cherita.