People pool, don’t they –

into clique-y groups, fiery moments

and watery, stroppy, wish-we-coulds?

The outsider is a needle in the hay:

the heart is there. The soul

is, surely, connected with the rest.

But the sense of one girl’s skin

waits, crawls, skitters and drools

and skates a lonely figure

on the playground of the cool.

What she needs to do

is treat expectation like a foe.

Why lie down and take it,

when victory’s won versus the lazy?