We Are Cheerleaders
Kelly McMahan
I know you can always tell
If someone used to be a cheerleader.
My goodness, you beautiful, growing thing
Tell us: how is that 5 foot view
right before you plummet down
and break your little legs?
And this one lady used to be a cheerleader,
because this self-aware self-theater
might otherwise disappear…
And her greatest loss yet
–even above gimmick wishes and pebble cleats
that she gently ground into the invisible leg hairs of her blonde friend–
(which soon became the purple-light-district indie kids in her bedroom
who closed their eyes
and waved their arms above their heads)
Is that she’ll never again
find the warm amusement
that swells from being unknown
Whose absence forms her spirit of yelling and the viciousness that harbors
deep oils from the pores of her greatest foes.
But she came to me, a while ago
In the form of banal teenage muses who were now both clean and bruised.
I heard her say, “Be Vibrant!”
But now I know that she actually said:
“be quiet.”
(I realized that fact on my own.)
My goodness dear, your lushed-out non-absolutes
Could nevertheless be true!
But when you put your posthumous on display for all the intimate world…
That’s how all of us could tell.
You were just a cheerleader, too.
Emily Cai
