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Eternal Frat Boys

So, this is who you’d rather spend time with?
Does their obnoxious behavior compensate for my shyness?
Does you saying you’re not like them, explicate your blindness?
Or, are you just really that numb to my kindness?
So much so, that these new friends
are (not men,
but) Eternal Frat Boys
who help YOU feel
THEIR OWN excitement.  I
remember meeting them, but only when I
had the absolute HONOR. I
remember their smell…protein powder. I
remember their eyes after snorting flour, their breath… after guzzling power. I
bet you still go to that bar and oh, how I
remember that bar…
how they all clapped when Trump came on the TV and
how though you held back from clapping, I could tell you agreed, and
how you were so unsupportive when I said I wanted to leave but
my reason for staying was we were nearly eight years deep and
my youth felt so familiar, to the parts my Anthro could       simply
no longer keep.

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Jenna Mabus is a writer whose work has been featured in Sublimation, The Literary Hatchet, Poetry For Mental Health, Scarlet Dragonfly Journal, and Tusitala. She is motivated to reframe the scary parts of the life experience into valuable art. Additionally, Jenna has written a journalism story for PBS’s Next Avenue.