High School Cliques It is amazing how you can Spend the rest of your life Reacting to how you were Defined in high school So cruel….. By others, and how it Never seems to go away No matter what you say Like a bad dream. Those cliques of jocks, And burnouts, nerds, Brains, and whatever else You can fathom, Not the mention the ones That seemed totally anonymous, Relegated to no status that even A label can give. The torments, derision, pranks That are heaped around Can surround the mind And pockmark it forever.   The varieties are endless It can motivate for the good, the Bad and the ugly. Smugly Clinging to the social structures That adults have created. Be cool Rule Laugh at the fool Class clowns Scholastic renown That chokes the life out with Expectations Of Where are they Now? You look back at it later Decades removed, And laugh at how meaningless it All seemed. Some take pride they mastered it. Others failed being the loser. Of its riddles And yet, everyone carries on Wanting the “right” car, or house, Or status neighborhood, school, job, Clothes, technological gizmo, Table at the restaurant, Country club membership And all the variations that we use To elevate ourselves and feel superior To someone else! Or You resent someone else who succeeded Where you did not. To smile in someone else’s failure Who do they think they are? A superstar? And the dreams of your youth Fade As it someday hits you most will never come true. So you get a potbelly, or Fat ass, go bald or grey And say It happens to most.   and as you keep looking back and say I’ve escaped all that folly but you never fully did! It just hid In different faces And races That led to the same places. So you can only dream a final Dream Of a heaven where no pecking Orders exist To resist. Is it possible? I want to believe it so………. But who the hell really does know? You have to be dead. And everyone tries to avoid that. Because…………….to die Could reveal It was All A Lie! Poem by Michael Juchnowski