one Wednesday night,
between fights,
we find ourselves
at the playground,
acting
like
children.
He pushes me
on the swing
while we take turns
swigging
from
a flask.
We laugh
genuinely
at each other’s
smiling.
We have actual fun.
He says,
“Be honest with me—”
with an unfamiliar tilt of his head,
and imagine this: everything
about him
is altered. He is
almost a stranger, but more like
a friend
I haven’t talked to in an eon.
So I am honest,
not vindictive—
when I tell him
my embarrassing secrets
about Brian, the truth
about that long-ago night,
about his horrible words in
the library
last week.
I am so honest, I weep.
I wait for him to get mad
about letting a jerk like Brian
touch me.
He listens,
and walks
around the swing;
I am reeling through the cold
air toward him now.
“Girl,”
(He gets on his knees)
“I’m so sorry
you got to
deal
with that bullshit.
I’m so sorry
you got to put up with
me.”
The swinging
weakens. No matter how
you push, the laws of physics
always win.
My feet
skid against the dry dirt
until I am a soft, still spot
in this hard, edgy night. His
head begs its way into my lap,
his hands swim around
my waist. I reach down and touch
my ice-cold fingertips
to his warm neck.
Is he crying? He is.
His heart reposes
in my hands.
“Why does
it have to be—”
He doesn’t finish.
He doesn’t have to.
Silently, we move
like wind chimes in autumn,
creating some sort of music
as we barely
and entirely
touch.
Descent
Typical night on the corner:
I must have smoked 17 cigarettes
by the time he randomly showed up.
It’s like he’s sewn a voodoo doll
of my heart. And he likes to poke
it, watch me squirm and effervesce.
You know how two pairs of eyes
can be on each other, even though
their people are far apart?
That’s how it was with us.
He didn’t say a word to me, but
man, he was screaming with his eyes.
The big surprise did not appear
until the next morning, on the school
bus ride. Brian Kipley
climbed on the bus with the most
busted-up face anyone anywhere has ever
seen. And I just sunk down
down
down in my seat.
Ugh
I didn’t do that to his face,
so why do I feel responsible?
It’s like that’s the consequence of
telling the truth
about a boy
to a boy.
I didn’t mean to sentence Brian
to Random Boy’s wrath.
From now on,
I’ll lie.
It’s the only way
to be safe.
Note
You tell me one thing,
then I read your notebook
and it turns out you’re
a liar.
Now, how can I
trust
someone
who lies
so easily?
I love you.
I want to help you,
but sometimes I worry
you’re too far gone.
P.S., I only say so because I love you so much.
Communication
I don’t think
it’s cute
when you read my
notebook
without
me knowing.
But you
showed
it to me
once.
Yeah,
once.
Okay.
. . .
First of all, you can look at my notebook whenever you want—any page—I got nothing to hide.
But as for yours,
I’ll
never
read
it
again.
Even if you want me to.
P.S.
When you read my notebook
it’s like I can’t be alone—
not even
in my own head.
It’s like you
already have
my body
and now
you want
my mind, too.
Get your own mind, K?
Turns Out
That guy at the restaurant is her secret X-man,
the dude she never talks about,
but writes about
ALL THE TIME.
I know because
I’ve got friends
who look out
for me. They don’t
want to see me hurt.
The vibrating hands
reach a crescendo.
I can no longer—
Truth
I hate him.
I don’t remember loving him
Truth is: I think I’m deluded.
I think I must want pain and
crave punishment.
After what he did,
I don’t ever want to see his stupid face again.
Good to know.
I thought you weren’t going to read my notebook anymore.
You caught me.
I couldn’t resist the title.
What He Did
I don’t want to talk about it.
Let’s just say
I can’t
believe it.
I never
thought
—never ever—
he could
hurt
me
that badly.
Honestly
You think I want to feel
this way about you?
Man, I used to eat
chicks for breakfast
and now they spring up
everywhere wanting me
to screw
you over,
but
I’m too busy wrapping
myself around your
pinky to respond.
I don’t know how
you can be jealous.
Don’t you see that
I can’t love anything
on this planet
more than
You?
Clarification
It’s not
jealousy. I’m
used to you
and most of your ways.
It’s more about the
fact that
you held me down
and wouldn’t let me go
for an hour, made me
listen to a screaming,
hateful
list of all the
things that are
wrong
with me.
You left marks on my arms,
you were so rough
>
(and indelible stains on us).
It’s not about
jealousy
anymore.
Temper
I’m stronger than I want to be.
My rage lately
is a conflagration
out of control.
My emotions, bottled tight,
are exploding
like shook-up champagne.
I keep waiting for someone
to notice the noise
my head makes.
I can go on
making comparisons
but they all mean the same thing:
I am not me.
She is the animate object of my affection.
And I do regret
the monster I’ve become,
whom neither of us love.
I regret him,
but truly,
if I’m being
honest,
I rely
on him.
Only he can make her see
how much she tortures me.
Physical Description
I don’t give details
because it’s
a gray, hazy
thing,
but
it feels and
sounds
like being crunched
in his giant,
contracting
fist.
It happens so fast
I can’t tell
exactly
which hand
is striking me,
and I don’t know
which muscles
to clench,
which way to turn
to get away,
so I just shrink
and sink into
a “happy” place,
and
hope
it ends
quickly.
You want details?
One time
when he didn’t like
what I said,
he grabbed my throat
with one hand.
Did you know
a breathing tube
is as easy to crush
as an aluminum can?
He squeezed until
I couldn’t talk,
couldn’t beg him
to stop. He held on
for so long, I got a
taste of what it’s like
to die
unsatisfied.
Everything
went black.
. . .
I woke up to him
kicking me,
saying:
“Get up.
Stop
faking,
you lying
bitch.”
Recovery
The weird thing is . . .
I don’t feel any pain
’til later, when we’re
lying in the grass
after make-up sex.
He didn’t notice
how I didn’t
really want to do it,
that I was just
so grateful
his hands were
tender
for a change.
I cried. Him, too.
He begged me things I didn’t understand:
“Help me,” he kept saying.
“Where am I?” he asked once.
Could I leave
someone
asking me that?
His lips moved
slowly
over each bruise,
trying to take
away completely
—the hurt—
but he couldn’t.
In so many ways,
my body is just a surface
he can’t break through.
Fatally Wounded by a Stray Bullet
Maybe it’s like she says,
I don’t know.
For me, it’s like
blood seeping into
my vision.
Everything
disappears
and all I can
do is grope my way
through
the red.
I am so, so
sorry if I hurt her. Really,
honestly,
I mean to hurt
myself. She just
gets caught
in the
cross-self-fire.
Tongue Tied
I told him
next time
he did it,
I’d leave.
I meant it,
but I don’t think
he believed me.
I don’t know
if I believe me.
I don’t know
why I said that
anyway.
What
I meant to say
was,
Get out of my life.
I hate you.
So why didn’t I?
Pictures
We go to the drive-ins,
and lie in the bed of
the truck, softened
by piles of blankets
that smell like us.
Looking up at the
giant illuminated love
story, I start to get
dizzy—maybe because
I recognize the signs.
I can see it coming
before the characters,
a married couple,
wrestle
to the ground.
He slaps
her hard, the clap
echoing off
the cars around us.
Random Boy
squeezes my hand
so hard, I hurt.
If I Had Someone to Tell
Would I?
Like Mary,
who secretly
crushes on the
randomness of
Random Boy
and is crushed
by the un-
believable
fact that
he chose
me?
Like his
best
friend,
who
won’t
look me in the eye?
Like the kids
at school
who
ignore
me more
each day?
Like
Mom,
who is
as delicate
as cigarette
ash these days,
but much less easy
to talk to?
“I Know What’s Going On”
At the sound,
my hand moves straight
to the bruise on my thigh.
“Obviously
that boy is
having sex with you.”
Oh.
(How can she tell? Is the
evidence
in the ways I
walk/talk/stalk
about him?)
“Yeah.”
“Thanks for talking
to me about it. Remember
when you promised to involve
me in all your Big Life Decisions?”
“No.”
“You were 5.”
?
“Now, there’s only one
thing I can do.”
Offer advice?
Ask me how I am
coping
with the decision?
“I made you
an appointment
at Planned Parenthood.
They’ll take care of you.”
I don’t tell her I’ve been on the
pill for a few months
already.
I’m in
love,
but I’m not stupid
usually.
Confession
I tell Peter X
how mean
Random Boy
can be, but
I don’t tell
him
the whole truth
because some
secrets
are just
too embarrassing.
He doesn’t get
why I sell myself
short
(his words),
why I don’t just
end it
if it’s imperfect.
“We have all our lives
to settle,”
he says.
“For now,
you should be
finicky.”
He leans in close
to an anthill
and takes a pic
of a tiny bug
carrying three times
its weight.
It probably won’t
come out.
“You should be
with somebody
who sees
you
like I
do.”
Snap.
Justify
When it’s good,
it’s real good,
like two different
delicious flavors
of ice cream
becoming one
awesome
new taste
you never
heard of.
But when it’s bad,
it looks like broken teeth,
tastes like blood,
smells like death.
It sucks like war.
Everything
we love
gets ruined.
But when it’s good—
well I’m pretty sure
(if you want to know why
I’m still here),
love doesn’t
get any realer
than the
violent,
jealous kind.
And right now,
I want just two things:
real and love.
See, everything
is a give, take.
Sometimes when you’re touching
the fiery center of real love,
you get burned.
Limits
Don’t wear that.
Don’t drink that.
Don’t talk to him.
Don’t listen to that.
Don’t smoke that.
Don’t be like that.
Don’t eat that stuff.
Don’t say those things.
Don’t write about me.
Why don’t you
write about me?
Don’t tell me
you just want your
freedom
back.
Don’t.
Just don’t.
Why are you doing that?
Because I want to
It’s so gay. Why would you want to?
And so on
and so on
and on and . . .
. . . so on,
etc.
Possessed
“Girl,
why won’t you
give?
I don’t lie
when I say I’d die
for you.
Stay true, and I’ll lie
down and
forget everything
but you.”
“Give what?
What don’t I give?
I don’t want
an empty shell
of you.
I want
the stranger
who surprises,
the Random Boy
in the crowd
at
the corner.”
“That dude?
He wasn’t nothing
’til you came
along—”
“Don’t be
double negative.”
“And that corner?
It’s dead—
The Lost Marble Notebook of Forgotten Girl & Random Boy Page 7
