After the Kiss

by Terra Elan McVoy

  Becca

  One Art (with apologies to Elizabeth Bishop)

  The art of losing is hard to master;

  though others do seem filled with the intent

  to be lost that their loss should be no disaster.

  Lose someone every day. Accept the loneliness

  of lost friends, the hour badly spent with another.

  The art of losing is hard to master.

  Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

  acquaintances, and names, and where it was

  you meant

  to meet someone. All of these will bring disaster.

  I lost my mother’s trust. And look! my last, or

  next-to-last, of three loved classmates went.

  The art of losing is hard to master.

  I lost two best friends, lovely ones. And, vaster,

  some realms I owned, seven months—a true love.

  I miss it. And it was a disaster.

  —Especially losing him (the soothing poems, a chest

  I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

  the art of losing’s too hard to master

  and I know it looks like a disaster.

  Sensory Overload

  He can’t not

  think of me I know he

  does.

  He must.

  because I can’t

  hear

  see

  smell

  feel

  find

  anything

  that doesn’t have

  his name

  his scent

  his taste

  his smile

  his self

  all over it.

  Extinguished

  Once a fire burned in me but now it is extinguished

  and I

  cannot even catch the scent of smoke.

  Ashes, ashes.

  Only ashes.

  It’s been a week of darkness. A week of

  nothing, I can’t

  even remember yesterday.

  The artifacts of my disappearance: tissues

  strewn across my floor, hair a tangled dirty mess,

  jeans hanging on my hip bones

  from seven days of being unable to eat.

  There is no fire in here. The fire is gone.

  I finally write these words—these sodden words—

  because once I was a fire-maker, and I don’t

  know how

  to do anything else.

  But they are damp words, wet words,

  and they will never catch.

  Scratching with bits of charcoal,

  my hands are black—blackened—

  with these attempts.

  Not even one coal left

  to light a torch, illuminate

  what has happened in the last week,

  what will happen in the week ahead.

  I am blind, scratching in ashes.

  There is no fire.

  And I am cold.

  Message in a Bottle

  Midnight? Sunset? I do not know

  light from day or dark from darker.

  These waves toss me

  from room to room,

  not really seeing and

  tasting only salt.

  I am floating on a gray sea, giving

  my body to the sharks, my dead heart to the tide,

  when a message swims up,

  a foreign text in a cell phone bottle:

  you are the one who

  knows everything in my soul—

  which is lost forever.

  Heavy with crust my eyes swim gray.

  There is nothing anymore I want to see;

  these are the scratchings of a crazy man,

  someone alone and moored

  on an island where the trees bear only

  fruits of humiliation

  and deceit,

  where strange birds call from trees,

  and the natives eat

  each other’s hearts.

  Gossip Fodder

  Misty Monday gray outside:

  weather for a zombie attack,

  and perhaps they’d mistake me for their kind.

  I stare

  into my locker a long time before I can take

  anything out,

  trying to visualize myself

  making it through another week at all,

  when Freya appears,

  poking her bony bent knees in the backs

  of my straight ones,

  making my legs half drop out

  from under me.

  Laughing, her face is all mouth

  with four slits for eyelids, nostrils.

  The rest, freckles.

  So many sometimes—I don’t mean to—I wonder

  what she got called

  on the elementary school playground.

  She’s had a Blow-Pop for breakfast:

  a big wad of pink gum snaps in her teeth

  —the sugar cloud floating from her glossy lips—

  and her tongue is green.

  Just trying to make you laugh, she smacks,

  grimacing a grin.

  I feel miserable

  and want to be left alone. I’m

  not even sure why we’re friends anymore,

  where she came from,

  why she’s sticking around,

  but I can’t say any of that because now

  —now that I abandoned

  all my other friends for Alec—

  she’s pretty much all I’ve got.

  Her voice turns serious: He wasn’t there.

  And I know where she means and when she means,

  and I know who she means and I don’t know

  if I want to know this or not.

  Probably a hot date, I snort. But she is ready for me.

  No but she was. And looking for him, you could tell.

  But trying not to.

  I had

  to hang out in the stoner garage I was so pissed,

  seeing her there.

  Her gum cracks and her gloss gleams. Her blue eyes

  bore into mine. I can see

  her nostrils working with excitement.

  I don’t want to listen to her,

  but it is better than just

  reading alone in the library,

  better than being with no one. And maybe

  if Freya spins it right, I can make believe

  it really is just another bit of gossip,

  and not something awful

  happening

  to me.

  Being Hamlet

  We’re reading him out loud in class

  and Mr. Burland is letting me

  be the prince.

  Dark days, dark mood,

  dark-ness—

  the dark of him enfolds me while I read,

  and I am wrapped in his misery

  instead of mine.

  Oh unholy ghost

  —oh twisting tempest—

  how I too know the paralysis

  of loss.

  Reading, it’s as though I am him:

  so angry you could weep,

  so sad you want to kill someone,

  so confused you can do neither.

  I read.

  And when I am done everyone looks

  as though an electric current

  has passed through the room.

  No one

  will look squarely at me.

  It is like I’ve been possessed

  and they are afraid

  this sorrowed ghost will climb into them too.

  Bittersweet Victory

  The call for submission posters we created

  have done their job.

  After school at writer’s forum

  and Mr. Burland is pleased, handing

  two stacks of stories and poems over—already

  a pile thick enough for a magazine,

  with two weeks still to go

  and more rolling
in.

  Some of these are good,

  Sara says, grunting in her own surprise and

  handing me a batch to see

  for myself.

  Even Rama is smiling,

  looking over Caitlyn’s shoulder, laughing

  at a bad metaphor but

  quite obviously tickled

  by the bounty we’ve reaped

  after such hard work.

  We should be

  tossing the papers up in the air, letting

  these entries rain down on us like confetti.

  We have

  done better than last year and

  our magazine

  —from the initial looks of it—

  might be

  something

  we would all actually read.

  I should be happy.

  I should be proud.

  But I should also be able

  to tell Alec

  about this.

  Sighting

  Just after the rush of a was-busy Thursday

  —people have cleared—and I’m

  finally with my bussing bucket out on the floor

  stacking sticky latte glasses,

  scraping plates of brie-crossaint goo and

  mooshed turtle brownie mess.

  I

  am moving to the next table when

  our faces meet like a movie set

  —the door swinging open right onto there she is—

  the girl

  kissing Alec in Freya’s photo,

  the alienishly tall redhead: her.

  the one I saw—yes I know for sure—

  at the Lake House

  two weeks ago in the kitchen as I

  bolted from the party angry at Alec

  and hating my life.

  I saw her standing there—see her standing now—

  and thought

  how pretty she was,

  and strange, with those red eyebrows.

  Last week too—before I knew—

  I served her cake.

  She came in and

  ordered decaf. I thought

  it was interesting she was alone.

  But now she is here—alone—and all I can think is

  I am going to faint and then throw up.

  Or maybe throw up and faint.

  The rush of blood to the head is so strong I can’t see

  and then I can’t move,

  which is when she strides past

  —almost close enough to touch—

  in her smooth-fitting jeans,

  her equestrian boots, and a cashmere wrap that’s

  going to swallow her.

  She is all slow motion:

  red hair heaped up on her head, not even

  wearing any makeup.

  I am going to

  collapse. My whole body is

  shaking

  but somehow I am bolting

  —my rag still wet on the table—

  to the kitchen and the giant walk-in cooler

  where I squat among the bins of pre-cut lemons,

  the quarts of organic cream,

  wrapping my arms around my shins

  —my face pressed in my knees—the cold giving me

  a real reason to shudder.

  I gulp in

  big breaths of dry, cardboard-smelling air.

  I want to cry

  but I can’t.

  I am already going to be in trouble

  for leaving Margot out there,

  for abandoning my post.

  I cannot cry.

  —I must go back out there I can’t stay in here

  another minute—

  I cannot cry.

  —I will never stop crying—

  I can’t.

  Borrowed Determination

  Emerging finally

  from the safe, dark caverns of the kitchen

  —damp-faced and still shaking—

  unsteady

  on my feet,

  I am unsure

  if I can face

  the face

  that just waltzed in.

  What’s wrong with you? Margot says

  with more disgust than concern—

  making Nadia turn,

  bringing the crying in me all over again.

  My friend is

  immediately

  two small hands on my shoulders,

  face set with strength.

  She’s here, I whisper. She came in.

  (Trailing unstoppable images of

  her face-his-face-their-hands

  behind her, reeking the perfume of

  he-picked-me-not-you.)

  Nadia’s tiny fingers squeeze

  into my muscles,

  she whispers

  —but it is a warrior scream through my spirit—

  You will not let her beat you.

  Staring Contest

  Does she have eyes

  in the back of her head? Brown glaring mean ones

  under all that red hair?

  Is she somehow watching me

  —watching her—

  without moving a muscle,

  without lifting her chin,

  not even when

  I overheat

  a whole carafe of steamed milk that bubbles over

  everywhere and

  Margot says Shit loud enough to hear?

  She must because the rest of her is

  unmoving,

  uncaring,

  and perfectly blank—seeing, I guess

  who can outcool who,

  who can do it without ever

  losing

  her cool.

  If so I am already losing.

  If so she doesn’t have to rub it in.

  She can’t have

  just walked in here, she has to

  know who I am. (She can’t have just walked in.

  Why else is she here?)

  Maybe she is waiting

  for me to say something first, is challenging me

  in some secret code I don’t know.

  By now the back of her head

  must be burning

  from where my eyes are boring holes into it.

  Soon her whole face will be on fire,

  and she will look over, melting.

  But no—

  after two hours on that laptop she gets up, glides out,

  doesn’t look back or sideways,

  leaving me alone at the counter

  the image of her burned in my eyes

  for a very long time.

  Secret Knowledge

  After work I want to call Freya

  —call someone—

  since I can’t call Alec. I want to say

  She came in today;

  I know her. And she doesn’t know me.

  I want to tell a person

  who isn’t Nadia, someone

  who will have a little more

  Ohmygod in their voice, someone just as stunned

  and astonished

  as I was this afternoon,

  someone who’ll want to hear

  all the mean things inside me,

  who will throw in one or two things herself.

  Telling Freya though

  will mean telling

  half the school,

  and I want to keep this to myself awhile:

  a small stone of poison to roll between my fingers—

  unsure how to use it

  unsure

  how much harm it could do.

  Called Out

  As the rest of my chemistry class

  pulls desks together

  for group problems,

  Mrs. Baetz stops at my desk and

  asks me into

  her office

  at the back of the room.

  I have only been in here once before,

  last year

  when I assured her I understood

  how far ahead I was

  and
she could help the others

  without any guilt.

  Now she is guilty-faced again and

  leaning forward on her knees.

  She wants to know

  am I okay?

  What I like about Mrs. Baetz is

  how she leaves me

  to do my thing,

  so this intimacy is weird.

  I am not sure

  where to look.

  I tell her I am fine.

  On her desk

  a stack of yesterday’s tests, waiting.

  Mine on top

  —a sad, red C.

  The numb feeling replaces

  any shock or shame.

  It could be anyone’s test there;

  what does she want?

  Just personal stuff, I finally give her,

  and the chair squeaks

  as she uncrosses her legs.

  I can feel her

  deciding about me.

  I hope personal stuff now, she finally says,

  won’t ruin your good future, Becca.

  My head jerks up,

  staring her full-on.

  Now was my future

  and it is already

  very much ruined.

  Bootstraps

  When the phone rings after dinner I am

  dry-eyed and empty on my bed,

  staring at the ceiling

  trying to pretend it’s not Friday.

  I am so startled I answer

  without looking;

  brother’s Heya kid

  is a strange surprise.

  You know he’s a bastard is the first thing he says,

  and it is so embarrassing

  (Mom told him)

  and so sweet

  (he’s calling me)

  that I laugh.

  I start to ask him

  why do boys do this?

  What is the appeal

  of someone shiny and new?

  But instead he surprises

  when he goes on:

  I can also guarantee

  he’s pretty eaten up.

  This gets my

  attention,

  and he explains how

  —invisibly—

  Alec’s just as smashed-up as I am.

  Because love wrecks us too, kiddo—

  we just wear it different.

  Sometimes

  a lot worse,

  because it’s on the inside.

  The thought of

  Alec sad

  makes me sad

  but it also feels better,

  and Ian telling me anything

  about his hidden secret heart

  is enough to make

  a lot of other things go away.

  We change the subject to roommates and classes

  and then he says, bootstrap time before he hangs up.

  It was our mantra together

  when mom and dad got divorced

  when we forged signatures,

  learned laundry,

  put ourselves to bed.

  So since he actually called

  —and will be here

  for his spring break