Halcyon

untitled #7

"do you remember her?"
he asks, swirling cheap whiskey.
"that quiet one," she says,
laughing too fast, thick lipstick
"pretty, but... you know."
they always know.
that's the idea.

exchanging brute comments
with casually cruel sarcasm,
because that's what scarecrows
are for, aren't they?
dolled-up mannequins
for insecurity-decked jabs.

oh, she was too smart for her own good
and what good is a girl
who doesn't know how to flirt
with that attitude?
boys don't, and never will,
like a girl like her, they snigger,
the way people do
when they survived something
they mistake for superiority.

"what happened to her anyway?"

oh, you know her deal,
the woman laughs.
a sad boy fell for her.
she was a syllabus nobody
wanted to read anyway
who else would she find
in this social exile of hers?

power is attractive,
until it's female.
smart women make
stupid faces
in pretty mirrors.

they snigger.
they laugh.
they chide.
they gossip.

because that's them, anyway.

and then—suddenly,
a lamborghini pulls up.

black.
indifferent.
exact.
black heels on black concrete.
someone reaches for her hand
like it belongs there.
the love of her life,
standing beside her
as if that has always been obvious.

no announcements.
no explanations.
she smiles
polite, distant, surgical.
the room adjusts around her:
chairs straighter,
voices smaller.

and oh, so suddenly,
she was "always brilliant,"
"actually misunderstood,"
"ahead of her time."

funny how love arrives
once success translates the language.

she doesn't stay long.
doesn't need to.
leaves behind
half-finished sentences,
and the quiet realisation
that the girl they mocked
didn't change
...only the audience did.

outside, the engine hums again.
inside, they sit with it,
the joke, finally landing
on the right people.