Poster Girl

squint your eyes and look closer

I'm not between you and your ambition

I am a poster girl with no poster

I am thirty-two flavors and then some

and I'm beyond your peripheral vision

so you might want to turn your head

cause someday you're going to get hungry

and eat most of the words you just said

both my parents taught me about good will

and I have done well by their names

just the kindness I've lavished on strangers

is more than I can explain

still there's many who've turned out their porch lights

just so I would think they were not home

and hid in the dark of their windows

til I'd passed and left them alone

and god help you if you are an ugly girl

course too pretty is also your doom

cause everyone harbors a secret hatred

for the prettiest girl in the room

and god help you if you are a pheonix

and you dare to rise up from the ash

a thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy

while you are just flying past

I'm not trying to give my life meaning

by demeaning you

and I would like to state for the record

I did everything that I could do

I'm not saying that I'm a saint

I just don't want to live that way

no, I will never be a saint

but I will always say

. . . .

Ani Di Franco

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