by Melody Dodds
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Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dodds, Melody.
Title: Clear cut / Melody Dodds.
Description: New York: West 44, 2020. | Series: West 44 YA verse
Identifiers: ISBN 9781538385142 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781538385159 (library bound) | ISBN 9781538385166 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Children’s poetry, American. | Children’s poetry, English. | English poetry.
Classification: LCC PS586.3 C543 2020 | DDC 811’.60809282--dc23
First Edition
Published in 2020 by
Enslow Publishing LLC
101 West 23rd Street, Suite #240
New York, NY 10011
Copyright © 2020 Enslow Publishing LLC
Editor: Caitie McAneney
Designer: Seth Hughes
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer.
Printed in the United States of America
CPSIA compliance information: Batch #CW20W44: For further information contact Enslow Publishing LLC, New York, New York at 1-800-542-2595.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Heather is a patchwork of people I’ve known who harmed themselves. I am one of those people.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Our reasons were varied. None of us were suicidal.
One person, a boy, told me that he cut himself to drive the suicidal thoughts away.
I did it in order to feel something, because I’d been driven emotionally numb by the things going on in my life, and in my head.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Others cut to stop feeling so much. So much pain, so much frustration, so much helplessness.
Some did it because it made the pain they felt inside a real thing, an actual wound that they could tend to and help heal. Still others did it to regain control.
There are as many reasons for self-harm as there are people who do it. And that’s a lot—the CDC estimates in 2018 put the numbers at one in four teenage females, and one in ten teenage males.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
People don’t typically cut because they are suicidal, but accidental suicides do happen. The emotional pain that leads to cutting can also lead to suicidal depression. If you are cutting yourself, you are overwhelmed. There is no shame in this.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW SELF-HARMS, PLEASE GET HELP.
Crisis Text Line
https://www.crisistextline.org/selfharm
Text 741-741
To Write Love on Her Arms
https://twloha.com/
S.A.F.E. Alternatives
https://selfinjury.com/
The Trevor Project (LGBTQ)
https://www.thetrevorproject.org/trvr_support_center/self-injury/
Befriender’s Worldwide
Resources for people who self-harm and their friends.
https://www.befrienders.org/help-and-support-with-self-harm
https://www.befrienders.org/how-to-support-someone-who-self-harms
This book is for all the kids who try hard to help each other… even if the advice is bad.
Warning:
This book contains scenes depicting self-harm.
SICK
They found Josie
in the locked bathroom
of a Bar Harbor café.
She had cut herself.
Her blood seeped
under the door.
I like to think
that it couldn’t
ever
have been me.
I would never be
that careless,
that sad,
that sick.
I like
to think that.
HEATHER WRIGHT–
ALWAYS ALL RIGHT
Through rain
and snow
and dark of night.
And never-ending
parent fights.
It’s all good.
It’s perfect.
I’ve got
Chairman Meow
to purr
and cuddle.
I’ve got my best friend,
Liv,
to gossip
and giggle.
It’s fine.
It’s terrific!
My parents yell
and I tell
jokes about it.
DID YOU HEAR THE
ONE ABOUT…
the lobster fisherman
who spent
all his money
on his wife’s
college degree?
He was CRABBY
about it,
but at least
they didn’t need to see
a PRAWNbroker!
And he did believe
that education
was SHR-IMPortant.
So he agreed
to going broke
by SHELLING out money
for everything
all those years.
But now,
his wife says
she thinks
that the lobsterman
doesn’t do enough
and also
that he may be having
a SQUID-life crisis.
HOW ABOUT THE ONE ABOUT…
the bank teller
who made
all her own money.
Now that she’s been working
at the bank
for a while,
she’s LOST INTEREST.
Not in banking,
but in the lobsterman
who put her
through school.
She treats the lobsterman
like he’s a LOAN SHARK
who wants to be paid back
in folded laundry,
emptied trash,
and clean litter boxes.
At work, she follows
stock market crashes.
At home, she crashes
the dishes.
The lobsterman thinks
the banker is
“too big
for her britches.”
STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD
THIS ONE…
about the parents
who never
stopped fighting?
One day,
the little girl asked,
“How come
you guys
fight
all
the
time?”
“Oh,”
they laughed,
“we’re just practicing
for when
you’re
a teenager.”
I’m
a teenager
now.
But they
haven’t
stopped
fighting.
And I’m just
a one-girl
stand-up show.
ONE NIGHT HE’LL CRACK
AND KILL HER.
AND PROBABLY KILL ME.
BEFORE DRIVING OFF
INTO THE NIGHT
WITH A BOX OF MATCHES
AND A CAN OF KEROSENE.
MAYBETONIGHT!
These are things
that I sometimes
think think think.
Can’t stop thinking.
That’s when
I need
to leave.
Can’t go
out the front door
like a normal person.
They’ll suck me
into their fight.
our daughter that.
My bedroom window!
It opens, but the screen won’t
move, budge, get out of my way!
What do I have
that’s sharp?
A fork!
I stab the screen
until there is a tear
that I can fit through
… almost.
EXTREME PAIN
shoots through
my arm.
Part of the screen
rips me open
from my armpit
to my wrist.
It BURNS.
It BLEEDS.
Just a thin line,
like a paper cut.
And it HURTS
about that much, too.
How can such
a small cut
HURT SO
MUCH?!
Except
it kind of
doesn’t.
It kind of
feels GOOD.
EXTREME CALM
That thin line
of blood is
weirdly calming.
I feel like
I’m watching
myself
watch my arm
bleed.
The heat
of the wound spreads
into my shoulder
and my chest.
My mind is clear
of chatter-thoughts:
run or die, die or run…
Those are gone.
There is just the pain
pulsing with each beat
of my heart,
and a hush around me.
I feel all right.
For real for real.
As alright
as I pretend
to be.
EVEN OUTSIDE
I can hear
my parents
YELLING!
As I get to the end
of the driveway,
I hear
my mom
SMASH!
another dish.
You’d think
Lobsterman-Dad
would buy
paper plates!
So I
head to
Liv’s.
LIV’S HOUSE
is the brightest
on the road.
Her mom makes ceramics.
All her little creatures
decorate the lawn all year.
Right now,
with Thanksgiving
in two days,
there are three turkeys.
Only right now,
I can’t see
the turkeys.
Or the lawn.
Because right now,
parked in the driveway,
is an SUV.
White.
Shiny in the moonlight.
Not one I’ve seen before.
So I’m not
100 percent surprised
when someone
who is not Liv
answers Liv’s door.
COOPER
Cooper Lessing
is not a person
I expect to see
at Liv’s.
I can’t even say
he’s the last person I’d expect
because I don’t expect him
at all,
for anything,
ever.
COOPER LIV
wealthy middle class
spoiled thankful
senior freshman
moved here born here
hates Maine, loves Maine,
especially especially
the Mainland.
Wants to leave
definitely maybe
for DC for NYC
to make bank in politics. to work in theater.
These columns
don’t
add
up.
BUT THERE HE IS
in Liv’s doorway.
“Can I help you?” he asks.
Like he
belongs here and I
don’t.
I can play this game, too.
“Who are you?”
“C’mon, Heather.
You know.
I’m the
student body president.”
“Oh, yeah.
Connor?
Cory?”
“Cooper,” he says,
and doesn’t think
I’m funny.
I try to
shove past him,
but he’s big
and heavy
and doesn’t move.
I open my mouth to…
scream?
yell?
shout for help?
BUT THERE LIV IS
“Heather!”
She shoves him aside.
For her, he moves.
She gives me
a hug, then gasps,
backs away.
“What happened
to your arm?”
I pretend
I hadn’t
noticed.
“Whoa!
I should probably
do something
about this.”
“You know
where the peroxide is.”
And I do.
I know
her house
like it’s
my own.
There are
orange sodas
in the fridge
for me. (Liv doesn’t drink it.)
There is
Raisin Bran
in the cupboard
for me. (Liv doesn’t eat it.)
Furrgus,
her Maine Coon cat,
sits in my lap,
won’t sit in hers.
I was more upset
than Liv
when her sister Paige
left
for Boston
in August
to start college.
And yet…
AND YET
I hear Cooper
through the bathroom door.
“How do you slice open
your whole arm
and not notice?”
I hear Liv:
“It’s hardly a slice.
It’s a scratch.
A deep scratch.”
The peroxide
b b l s
u b e
but it doesn’t
sting.
The “deep scratch”
still burns.
Hums.
It’s not
soothing now.
It just hurts.
Like any
other cut.
AGAIN
I hear Cooper:
“It was her
whole arm.
How do you
not notice?”
“You don’t know Heather.
She splits firewood.
Runs trails.
Does archery.
She’s not wimpy.
She’s got a CRAZY cat.
She’s always
scratched
and
bruised
at least
a little.”
“You’re sure?
She’s not one of those
crazy girls
who cut themselves
to feel better,
is she?”
What
is he talking about?
TURNS OUT
Liv
doesn’t know
either.
She laughs.
“I don’t know
what you’re talking about.
So I’m going to
go ahead and say
the answer is
no.”
“That’s good.
Because
if she is,
you can’t
hang out with her.”<
br />
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
And what about it—
his tone?
how dad-like he sounded?
the fact that he would say it at all?—
makes me so angry
that I’m shaking?
The cut
gives me an out:
“This hurts a lot.
I should probably
go home.”
Liv laughs.
“And what?
Have your dad
look at it?”
Because she knows
my parents.
Knows the fighting,
the yelling,
the here-is-money-
go-get-dinner-from-Tideway.
And she knows
they won’t care
about this cut.
This deep scratch.
Cooper
doesn’t know
any of that.
And I don’t want him to.
I shoot
Liv a look
that tells her this.
She understands
exactly
what I’m saying
without saying.
To Cooper,
she says:
“Heather’s father
hates the sight
of blood.”
I grin and wink
at her,
meaning, Nice save,
then say,
“Good thing
he’s not a cop,
like your dad.”
Cooper makes
exactly the face
I was hoping for.
So I know
that he didn’t know that
either.
LIV’ SSISTER, PAIGE
is coming up
the driveway
as I leave.
She rushes at me
and gives me
an awkward hug
around the pizza
she’s carrying.
“Heather!
Where are you going?
You can’t
just leave
already!
It’s not because
of this jerk,
is it?”
And she
PUNCHES
Cooper’s truck!
My hero!
“I cut myself,”
I tell her.
Which doesn’t really
explain anything…
She looks me
right in the eyes.
“Are you okay?”
I force
a laugh.
“It’s only
a scratch.”
It’s not until
later
that I think maybe
she didn’t mean
my arm.
IN SCHOOL ON MONDAY
Liv asks me
how my arm
is doing.
She knows better
than to ask
about my Thanksgiving.
She knows