Shot Up in the Sexual Revolution (The True Adventures
of Suzy Creamcheese), Part 4

5.
So you move in with the guy, and he's writing a book;
he's having a vision, he's painting a fresco.
You become the shadow artist, muse to his legend,
all smoke dreams and not bumming his high.
Nights he spends brooding, you wait up, ready
to fry an egg at midnight to comfort his despair.

Or, and why not,
pick up and move to another city,
tramp around Greece or Spain.
Maybe he gets a gig and you go with him to the coast
and you're back waiting tables to make the rent,
and he's writing rock and roll reviews,
with a backstage pass and too much time on his hands.

Until you come home early from work one night,
smelling of fries, and he's got some girl in the bed
she's maybe sixteen, they're watching cartoons all naked
and eating Chinese; they just smile up at you
and who would blame you then
if you picked up that little TV from the cart
and threw it into the wall so it sparks and flashes down
all over them and they're scrambling out from under
all white legs and buttery butts
and you just stand there looking on calm, but you don't
that's too retrograde old school possession, too many
middle class expectations so you don't freak out you're very

cool, but you think of it later then you break down and cry
and say you really love him and you're just
a girl again, hating yourself, and nothing has changed.


6.
So you leave the city, plan to make it on your own,
or, why not, hit the road, hitch to the coast,
grab the overnight charter to Brussels by way of Iceland,
sleep on the fly.

Sleep on the subway, sleep in the park, get beat up
cutting through the cemetery at midnight,
discover the dubious protection of the law.
Learn to watch what's ahead of you
and what's behind you; don't walk too slow;
try to look like you have someplace to go.
Even a woman lingering by a store window
may be mistaken for a prostitute.

And girls turn up covered in leaves by the road,
knifed or strangled, and the ones taken in by lunatics
on communes devoted to Armageddon, whose leaders
leap up in rage during murder trials to shriek:
"My thoughts light fires in your cities!"