Nah nah nah

Nah nah nah

La vida de rodilla

Nah nah nah

Nah nah nah

La vida de rodilla

Shhhhh

Cool your jets

Shhhhh

Cool your jets

I first encounter my plastic likeness

In a shop window

On a friendless afternoon in 1980

I am fourteen, she is a US Size Four

I wear a tracksuit patterned with cartoon mice

She wears a fishnet dress

Over a fluorescent swimsuit

I hide under matted hair

She stares eyelessly

Through smash-proof glass

As overheating spotlights

Bounce off of her bald head

It is something

To aspire to

Nah nah nah

Nah nah nah

La vida de rodilla

Nah nah nah

Nah nah nah

La vida de rodilla

Shhhhh

Cool your jets

Shhhhh

Cool your jets

Eight years later I am charged

With stockroom duty in the same store

My daydream souring as I grapple

With a new shipment

Of bubble-wrapped mannequins

I match heads to necks and legs to thighs

Unpeeling swathes of plastic

From kind-eyed disembodied faces

And torsos with cut-glass hip bones, US Size Two

When my wordless colleague

Leaves the room for a moment

I steal a glance at the mirror

In the corner and find myself lacking

Nah nah nah

Nah nah nah

La vida de rodilla

Nah nah nah

Nah nah nah

La vida de rodilla

Shhhhh

Cool your jets

Shhhhh

Cool your jets

The century ends

And I have worked my way up

To Deputy Part Time Window Dresser

Late nights are spent pinning polyester

Around frail resin waists

My focus broken occasionally

By a bang on the glass

From a passing stag party

Or a set of reddened eyes

Staring and staring from a parked car

Exposed to this nocturnal audience

Whilst I struggle to loop a fake arm

No bigger than a child's

Through a Size Nil blouse

I wonder if they are comparing me to her

My clumsy contorted flesh

Versus her immaculate deadness

Before slipping on a discarded wig

And colliding with the windowpane

I feign polite interest

As my life flashes before my eyes

And I hope that there's a next time

Nah nah nah

Nah nah nah

La vida de rodilla

Nah nah nah

Nah nah nah

La vida de rodilla

Shhhhh

Cool your jets

Shhhhh

Cool your jets