the words ringing false.
There is
only one answer:
Alec got in my way.
And it hits me, too true,
so I say it out loud,
knowing I can’t
let it happen
again.
Camille
hope for shasta
you are out in the yard watching the dogs—two of the beagles were adopted yesterday apparently, and their sister lopes around, uncertain, trying to provoke the dalmatian mix and the boxer called optimus, but both of them are more interested in the new strange man who stands quietly at the edge of the yard, the one you’ve seen before a few times, the one the dogs think has treats in his pocket. one of your hands is on shasta’s belly and the other traces circles in the dirt, still fixating on all the stuff you don’t know. the man interests you too though. he likes to come and pet the dogs, to just look—but you are trying to set an example for them, trying to be cool, trying to make him do the work. he walks his way slowly along the cinder block wall, one foot over the other, sidling in his khakis and his blue diamond tie. the dogs run up to him and sniff his knees. he reaches down to each one, pats them on the head. but soon it is obvious he’s working his way over to you, and eventually even shasta’s watching when he finally comes forward, stretches out his hand. i’m john, he says, and you tell him your name, the dog’s. hello, shasta, he says in earnest, holding his hand out only a little, letting shasta’s hesitant nose sniff toward him. i’m not allowed to come home with another dog, john says eventually, his eyes looking out at the puppies but his hand still held out in shasta’s direction. shasta, who is leaning over now, licking the man’s fingers. your hand goes back and forth, along shasta’s furry back, and his tail thumps once, twice. you don’t know what to say and are more interested in seeing what shasta does, watching how he stretches—invisibly—even closer to this new man. his heart is thumping in its rib cage under your hand that rests in his white-freckled-fur, and you want to whisper he’s not that great, and also go for it—don’t be afraid. watching him—watching them together—there is a tension inside you that you want to suspend, a sudden understanding you want to take home and bottle, to hold on to and keep for later when you really need it. here, sitting in the dusk, stroking shasta with this stranger, it is suddenly very clear to you the necessity for caution and the deep need to let it go.
hope for you
mom has the letter from berkeley sitting right in the middle of the dining room table when you get home from the shelter. it was too weird to go to the coffeehouse tonight—you still don’t know what to do if you see coffeecounter girl again. i waited until you got home, mom says, though she can barely wait anymore for you to put down your bag. she doesn’t know this is the only real application you’ve sent—that you will not go anywhere if you can’t go here—and you wish she weren’t standing here, that you could open it on your own. you didn’t think you wanted to go, but now with the letter here and knowing their international programs and your squandered funds and your revised future plans, you are terrified you won’t be accepted. you sit down at the table, slide the envelope to the edge. if you want to know things better, here is your first chance. as soon as you open it you will know something, at least, and that will be a start. you drag the letter opener mom set out on the table slowly across the top. you pull out the two-page letter. congratulations is all you see.
consolation prize
you spent the last two days working on the invitations: real ones, with hand-stamped filigrees and mom’s best handwriting. you even dug up your old calligraphy kit and its antique wax seal, held the match to the wax and then pressed down, hard. now it is before school and you are handing them to everyone, even edgar, and they all raise their eyebrows but are cooing with delight. they won’t take off for spring break until saturday, and before they go you’ve decided to party. mom’s already planned the hors d’oeuvres and punch and dad’s stringing lights all across the back porch. it will be a real party, a gatsby party, the kind of party you’ve never gotten to have in other cities, moving around and barely accumulating enough friends to take out for pizza. but now you have a gang of them and it is your senior year and you are all going away soon, so you will have this party you’ve always wanted and who knows how it will turn out but at least you’ll have this. you tell them to bring music you tell them to dress up, and they are bubbling and giggling and you feel light as a bird. there are things you’re afraid of, things you can’t control but there are also things you are glad for and what’s wrong with that?
purging and leaping, leaping and purging
there’s a postcard you want to write but there’s something else you need to write first. coffeecounter girl is not here to hand you your cake but it’s not her day and you need to concentrate, anyway. you’re not sure if you’ll send it but it needs to be said: dear alec, you start, we were both fools. you want to apologize, you want to slap his face, you want to insult him, you want to say thanks. you type all of this and you type some more, things you didn’t know you were thinking until your hands started to move. i was hiding my heart and you were hiding yours too and we played hide and seek together, and both of us lost. you say more than you mean to, you don’t say enough. you tell him about chicago, you tell him about sharks. you imagine him thinking you’re crazy, imagine him understanding, imagine him ashamed, imagine him glad. you wonder what he’ll say back or if he’ll even open it at all, seeing it’s from you, and you type with a fever, you type without fear. you say he’s a bastard, you say you understand. you say that you hope he finds peace in his life, that he dies alone. you are angry and righteous and embarrassed and sad, and for the first time in a long time you’re okay with it all. writing, you are a girl on a trapeze, swinging high in the air. you know there is no one on the other side to catch you. but your costume is spangly and all eyes are on you and at some point you’ll leap—at some point you’ll flip. and there may be no net—though it may also be intact, you can’t see—but at this point the jumping is everything—it’s all that you’ve got. and as you write you understand this, you understand you won’t hit send, but for now you are swinging, swinging, swinging wildly in the air. your eyes are open, your arms are outstretched.
wanted memory #1
you’d been dropping by the institute after school and on weekends—mom had gotten a membership—saying hi when he was working and hanging out together sometimes after they closed at five, going to the artist’s café for coffee and pie, just walking around the city—up and down meandering, to the river, to state street or back to the loop, you didn’t care, just walking and talking—you’d been doing this for a couple of weeks now. and with him you were never restless but simply wanting more and more, feeling more at home with him each time. you could never stop watching that mouth when he talked, but at some point it got so you almost didn’t want him to kiss you, because this felt different and you wanted it to stay different, wanted him to be here and now instead of an escape to somewhere else. he was so tall—taller than you—and when you walked together sometimes you would hook your arm around his, and he would always press it closer to his side with his bony elbow and it was nice. he would talk about philosophy he would talk about history he would ask you questions about where you’d lived and where you wanted to go. you would talk about art you would tell him about your parents and interchangeable friends, you would go to the palmer house together and simply look at the beautiful ceiling. and then one day you were walking—it was dark out and you were both in your long coats, scarves up to here and he had leather gloves—and you both saw it at the same time: the first flakes of snow floating down against the black glass, and he stopped then and turned to look at you and the snow was floating down behind him, just in little bits and he took you in his gloved hands like maybe you were something carved in expensive wood, and his face came down and your whole neck got warm tilting up to him and you said what are you doing? and he was so close to
your lips, close enough for you to feel as well as hear him say something i should have done a long time ago. and then you were kissing right there on the sidewalk and the first snow was falling down, melting before it even reached you.
a new purpose
$7,376.42. $7,376.42 in a box you have saved, saved and squandered and squirreled and squashed. $7,376.42—each bill every nickel passing and passing through your hands, comforting you, consoling you, helping you fall asleep at night. and you thought it was useless, it meant nothing—not what it meant before anyway, not what you wanted it for. but now you understand it adds up to something different, can mean something else. and it is hard to let go, to imagine alternatives, but you are bold with unknowing, you are ready to explore. so you find yourself online, you are checking out tickets. the price is nothing to you—you have so much saved. you will explain to your parents, they will think it is cool, spring break in chicago. you click purchase now.
Becca
I Know I Have Been Ignorant (with apologies to Dorothy Parker)
I know I have been ignorant at your side;
But what’s past is past, and all’s to be.
And worthless the day, to linger any more dolefully—
Beautifully it lived, and hideously faded.
I will not write any more of hearts betrayed.
And you, being hurt, may have your tears for me,
But I will not offer you fidelity
You’d be, I think now, a little unworthy.
Yet this is the need of a girl, this is her curse:
To continue to feel, and give, and give,
Because the throb of giving is still sweet in me.
To you, who constant gave me vows and verse,
My last gift will be my absence, so you too can live;
And after that, my dear, we’ll both be free.
An End, a Beginning
It wasn’t
as bad as I thought.
He called me again,
I finally answered,
told him,
—once and for all—
I’m sorry; I can’t.
Now Mom sits,
filling out St. Andrews papers;
spring break is next week,
and we are going up to see.
I have my pen too—
a new job application:
there’s more that is needed,
more money to save.
We are peaceful together,
and pleasantly tired.
The future curls up
on our back porch,
presses its back to the door, waits
until morning.
One Is Silver, the Other Gold
Jenna is nervous
in the parking lot before school,
but Jonah tells her
we will bring down the house.
We have practiced for days
and now it is time,
but she is not sure we can say
high-class prostitute in class.
But that’s the best part! Jonah cries with a gasp,
and I remember his mom
bringing cupcakes in sixth grade.
These are my old friends,
this is my new,
they are mixing together
like vinegar and oil: separate, but still savory
—essential with zest.
The bell rings and Jenna’s eyes
are flung at me, wide,
I hook my arm in hers sing,
Ooo you’re a leg-end, Dave.
and she busts out laughing like she always does.
Paloma says not to worry,
as she follows us to the building,
she has seen us together
and knows
we’ll be great.
Alternative Heat
Two days and Alec hasn’t written,
won’t write
—will never write me again.
And there is still a place inside me,
an empty place where once a fire burned,
and lava flowed.
There may always be a trail of ash there.
But that fire burned only
in a darkened cave
where two people
sat alone together.
Out here
in the sunshine
I have other ways to keep myself warm.
Nostalgia
Driving by the coffeehouse
—and I could go in.
I have meant to call Nadia
but it still seems too weird.
I miss Denver and his juggling,
but my little crush was dumb, and he was never
more than friendly.
I wonder about the redhead,
if she’s forking up cake,
if she misses me, knows
I won’t ever be back.
I wonder if I saw her
if I’d say anything,
or if I’d let her stride by
in her knee-high boots.
I picture her biting
her stubby fingernails.
I hated her;
I loathed her;
but I don’t anymore.
I’m not sorry I won’t see her,
not sorry she’s gone,
just sorry
we didn’t meet
in a different way.
Self-Portrait (with apologies to Robert Creeley)
She wants to be
a bold woman,
an energetic woman
as bright, as brave
as the eccentrics around her.
She doesn’t want compromise,
nor to be excessively nice (nor cruel)
to anyone. Just herself,
and final in her beautiful,
her total, embracing of it all.
She tried the angry,
the hateful, the “Oh, let’s
stick knives in each other”
and it was awful,
bumbled, wholly inconsequential.
Now she’ll stand on
her own strengthening legs.
Her arms, her skin
glow daily. And
she hates, but loves equally.
Camille
the final leap
dear neil—i’m sorry i haven’t written before now. i’m sorry for a lot of things, but especially for the way i left you. next week is spring break and i’m coming to chicago. i hope that you’ll see me. i hope you’ll say yes.
Acknowledgments
Everyone always thanks their editors in these things, but in my case it is particularly necessary. Anica, thank you for knowing me so well and for cheering and coaching and guiding and suggesting and advocating and in general making me a better person and writer. Next I must thank Andrew and Jenny at Java Monkey, for their excellent decaf and croissants, but mainly for their friendliness and all their helpful insider information. To the poetry coaches in my life—the people who inspired and educated and formed me—this book absolutely could not exist without you: Mrs. Shepard, Mrs. Merickel, Ron Bayes, Ralph Berry, plus Matt (Holden), Dan, Carissa, Brad, Jose, and above all Mr. Davis. All the completely amazing people at Simon & Schuster (Bethany, Jen, Bess, Emilia, Mara, Annette, Russell, Tom, Jim, Victor, Christina, Mary, Venessa, Lucille, Nicole, Paul, Carey, Brenna, and Lauren) get a big thank-you kiss on the cheek for the hard work and incredible support. Cara Petrus earns an extra-juicy kiss for the amazing cover and for always presenting my books in such a tasty way. I think I’ve said once before that I cannot thank my family enough for simply helping to make me me, and the same thing goes here. Nat and Casey, thanks again for the high school low-down. Amy, thank you as always for all your serious counsel, but special thanks for just being there this whole time. Thank you too to everyone at (or in) Little Shop of Stories for being totally awesome. Finally—best, favorite, and deepest thanks to Scott, for bringing the poet alive in me again.
From Pure
by Terra Ela
n McVoy
When we get to the Midtown YMCA the music’s already slamming, and it’s crowded. Twenty yards inside the main doors are throngs of people we both know and don’t: kids from youth groups across the metro-Atlanta area, including a lot from Decatur, where we live, plus some who were bussed in from way outside the perimeter, just for this. You can feel everyone’s glee to be here, which is what makes JGCC dances way better than ones at school, where everyone’s too cool to do anything. The DJ is onstage with his mixing board: some prematurely balding college kid with perfectly broken-in Cons and rainbow suspenders; a guy who likely thinks DJ-ing for a bunch of Christian kids is some kind of ironic alterna-cool, though the joke’s on him ’cause everybody’s digging his groove so much, he’s genuinely getting into it.
Right away, we see Wedge, one of the youth ministers at Morgan’s church, standing close to the stage, nodding his head to the beat. There’s this ten-yard radius of emptiness surrounding him, like everyone knows about his “Save Britney” website.
Regardless, Morgan bounces over to him, chattering like mad. The music’s too loud to tell what she actually says, so Priah and I don’t even try to pretend to follow the conversation. We scan the crowd instead: a mass of shirts and faces, people dancing, an arm going up—a head flung back. Out there on the back edge is Cameron, the Methodist poster child for gayness, surrounded by his savior angels: girls from his church and our school who are determined to love Cameron despite his refusal to See the Light (i.e., Convert to the Straight Side). More faces, more folks I don’t know—I’m looking for Naeomi’s face somewhere out there—and then, omigah, there he is.
“Come on,” Priah says, just as the DJ starts a remix of some old Madonna, “I love this song.” Pree’s knack for timely diversions is so keen it’s almost spooky, but I don’t dwell on it as she pulls me into the crowd and we start to dance. I concentrate on the music, on Priah’s big smile, instead of wondering whether Jake saw me, if he saw me see him, if he didn’t want to see me, blah blah blah. Instead, I’m just dancing. Or trying to. This really is a good song, even if it is kind of old, and Priah’s fun to dance with, because she’s so good, though not the kind of good that makes you feel bad dancing next to her. I smile back, only occasionally looking over her head, telling myself I’m looking for Cara, and am not, in fact, trying to spot Jake again.
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